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EPA Reaches Goal On Data Center Study
1sockchuck writes "After initially struggling in its effort to find data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage, the EPA extended the program by a month and has managed to recruit 215 facilities to participate in its program to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. An EPA official says there are no plans to regulate the data center industry."
...yet.
I for one seriously doubt that my flux-capacitor centric data center design will be receiving its Energy Star certification any time soon.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
I share your natural skepticism of public officials' pronouncements, but there is another factor: it is in the data centers' own best interest to analyze their energy use, since it's their biggest cost by far. Since there's a relatively rapid turnover in gear (compared to, say, power plants), the data centers are going to be very interested in energy use best practices and best gear even without a government mandate. And so are the manufacturers of said gear--they also have a fairly short product cycle. They might be a little cranky if the government pushes them, but their customers are already pushing them by looking at instructions/watt as well as instructions/second.
udin
Well duh!! None of the data center operators opened their email.
The government, with access to regulated utility records, knows exactly how much power a datacenter is using. And the energy star program applied for years to other commercial buildings has resulted in no federal mandates. You're basically pushing a line of FUD for... well no one benefits really. Hopefully you at least get a good Funny mod rating for your efforts to stunt the development of useful data to help the industry.
The government acting as a neutral party to collect useful data is hardly meddling. Next you'll decide to rant about them meddling in pharmaceuticals by funding cancer research. The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business. When benchmarked, datacenter efficiency has been found to vary by over a factor of two between facilities. Owners don't really know what is efficient - high bills are just part of the business, and competitors aren't willing to share good data on the subject. Hence the need for the government to provide some benchmarks, similar to the flawed, but better than nothing, mpg ratings for cars.