Serving as a major requirement for data centers worldwide, internet and cloud services have been profusely rising over the past few years. This substantial growth in the demand for the internet has brought into picture its harmful impact – the surging environmental impact, growing public cognizance, and higher cost of energy. This has prompted the data center companies to lay focus on adopting the green policy which would lead to unprecedented growth of the green data center industry by the end of 2026.
Elaborating further, energy stands as a major central component for the data centers to cater to the customer requirements pertaining to high-speed data services. Estimates claim that the data centers worldwide consumed approximately 416 terawatts of total electricity generated on the planet in 2016, and the number is only increasing by the day. This calls for an urgent need for companies to devise strategies to reduce the carbon emissions and augment the energy efficacy in the upcoming years.
As per the survey released by AFCOM State of the Data Center, nearly 70 per cent of data-center providers showcased that the power density per racks has grown tremendously since 2013. This has enabled the managers to opt for novel ways to power the respective data centers with renewable energy sources.
The data center industry is highly consolidated. On these grounds, major players are ensuring high adoption rates of green data centers to contribute to ecological sustainability. One such breakthrough is achieved by the tech- giant, Google Inc.
Green Data Center Market
Google, since 2014, has been reducing the energy utilization up to 50 per cent through the establishment of advanced temperature management practices to combat the facility energy use. Not to mention, the company has made hefty investments in the data centers and experimental technology as compared t any other data center providers, but its step towards the ‘green economy’ has set a good example for the industries.
Why ‘green’ data centers in the first place?
The robust proliferation of smartphones across the globe has had significant implications on the cost of operation and the environment of the data centers.
As the customer base for electronic products is rapidly increasing, businesses are on the go to extend their storage and data retention demands. This marks the operation of millions of servers globally on a daily basis which is often upgraded and managed but remains unused for a larger period of time. This, in turn, implies a major waste of money and precious energy.
Green data centers help tackle this waste appropriately, as they are suitably designed to reduce energy consumption, increase energy efficiency, and lower carbon footprints.
The use of power for IT equipment in data centers outweighs the energy needed to cool it down. The IT equipment operating temperatures have increased manifold in the recent years thereby reducing the need for mechanical cooling in various climates. The deployment of artificial intelligence across business operations has added to the reduction in greenhouse gas emission as well.
Embedding innovative technological solutions into data centers has not only left a positive impact on the environment but it also yields business profitability which could contribute to the rising demand for data centers globally.
Related read: Modular Data Center Market to hit $50 Billion by 2025
A path to sustainability
The technology used for data centers is drastically changing every now and then. This is directly establishing newer growth avenues for clean power. Hefty advancements in renewable energy and storage solutions are giving rise to the opportunity to self-generate power as compared to the dependency on the utilities.
Concurrently, the unison of the data centers with organizations and customers who are interested in the development of sustainable solutions, would help suffice their goals of establishing green data centers.
A step towards the development of ecological data center has already been taken by the companies with an intent to drive sustainability transformation forward. Industry mammoths like Facebook and Microsoft have pledged to make use of 100 per cent renewable energy which would accelerate the product demand in the upcoming years.
