Rise of Green Data Centers in the USA

There is a growing focus on energy efficiency that has made the data center industry implement eco-friendly solutions. The energy consumption of data centers has been continuously increasing with the expansion in the quantity and size of data centers, causing a rise in CO2 emissions. In addition, there is a higher need to lower the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) among companies. Recent government regulations in the USA, regarding the energy efficiency in data centers, are strengthening the green data center market size in the region.

Green data center

A green data center is a computing facility for storage, management, and processing that is designed, built, and operated for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. It has the same features and capabilities as a regular data center but uses less energy and space keeping in mind the green computing principles.

The market for green data centers is poised to reach USD 25 billion by 2024, globally. The United States of America commands the green data center market and accounts for a chunk of the revenue in the sector. The green data center market in the US is expected to reach USD 6 billion by 2024.

There are various factors that drive this growth in the US, like a large number of organizations operating in the region demanding high data processing. Also, there are multiple government initiatives encouraging the use of sustainable technologies to reduce the environmental impact. The increase in the adaptation of green data center technology is also seen due to higher general awareness in the Northern American region and the implementation of Energy Efficient Government Technology Act (HR 306) in 2017 has mandated agencies to develop a plan to implement energy efficient technologies in their data centers.

Advantages of a green data center

The advantages of the green data center include a reduction in the consumption of energy, cost saving, and reduced environmental impact. They also reduce the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades which deal with increased power and cooling requirements. The benefits offered by green data center look promising enough and quite lucrative in the long run, convincing the organizations to spend a huge amount for their deployment. Green data center adoption is thus emerging as the new trend.

The growing focus on greenhouse gas emission has forced the organizations and governments to pay attention to the need for improved energy efficiency. The need of the hour is an expansion in the data centers, and giants like Google and Microsoft are setting an example by making that expansion sustainable. The concern of the power bill is also driving the organizations to adopt greener and eco-friendly measures leading to innovation in this sector.

Baby steps with green data center technology

Data centers are already undergoing a massive expansion with edge computing and the increasing demand for data storage. This unprecedented increase along with power consumption concerns are steering the organizations to take a greener approach. However, green energy can be more expensive and it might not always be feasible for the organization to entirely change the technology and equipment in an existing data center owing to the high cost associated with it. But smart and thoughtful changes go a long way in making your data center more environment-friendly and cutting down your power cost.

In the traditionally cooled data center, almost 35-40% of the power is consumed for cooling. This consumption can be reduced significantly by shifting to liquid cooling. Liquid cooling methods cool only the heated parts of the data center, which helps save energy used, unlike air cooling which cools the entire building.

For an edge-based approach, where you want to deploy multiple micro data centers around the globe, you can opt for a containerized/modular data center. For instance, Prasa’s EdgeCenter comes in the ISO certified recyclable shipping containers which reduce waste production and provides a PUE of approximately 1.19.

The substantial growth of power consumption can also be curbed by adopting DCIM services. DCIM tracks power consumption in the data center identifies locations of higher power usage and power leakages and mitigates the carbon footprint.