EECA calls for policy options to improve datacentre energy efficiency

The report ‘Energy efficiency policy options for Australian and New Zealand data centres' by the Equipment Energy Efficiency Programme (E3), under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), is now available for comment.

The report, which will remain open for comments until 18 July 2014, investigates datacentre energy consumption and considers mainly voluntary information measures for improving energy efficiency.

The report further states that datacentres are high energy users with significant scope for improving the energy efficiency of their operation.

According to the report, in 2013 datacentres consumed 3.25 petajoules in New Zealand or 2.1 per cent of national consumption. The trend is for increasing demand for the services provided by datacentres (mainly data storage) due to growing use of information technology.

Large new datacentres use the latest energy efficient technology but older, smaller datacentres generally do not. Energy efficiency would improve if smaller older datacentres were retired.

However, decision makers often lack the knowledge to choose an energy efficient datacentre service, or they do not prioritise IT energy efficiency due to other pressures. The report finds that there is a lack of knowledge available for improving current datacentres and their operators often lack the time and budget to keep up with new technologies.

Policies to be considered include NABERSNZ for datacentres to enable decision makers to compare datacentres, Government procurement and website advice for use of efficient datacentres based on the NABERSNZ rating, and server or uninterruptable power supply efficiency measures like voluntary standards and labelling.

The EECA are interested in gathering thoughts related to recommended polices to drive datacentre efficiency improvements, issues in implementation of these policies, current business ability to accurately choose efficient datacentres, points of encouragement for businesses to move to more energy efficient datacentres or cloud providers, and the benefits for purchasers in clear labelling and information on datacentres, UPS, servers and storage.

The E3 paper on energy efficiency policy options can for datacentres can be read here