Major powers agree on datacentre energy metrics

Organisations from Europe, the US and Japan have reached an accord on the measurement of energy efficiency, giving datacentre operators a better understanding of how to improve efficiency at their own sites.

The proposals were put forward at a meeting in February to discuss rising energy consumption at datacentres.

The meeting was attended by experts from the US Department of Energy, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the European Commission, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan's Green IT Promotion Council and The Green Grid.

The organisations have recommended a number of standards, including The Green Grid's Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) as the base metric for energy efficiency. PUE is the measurement of total energy used divided by IT energy consumption.

Also on the agenda was improved measurement capabilities to make it easier to measure power use down to the individual server level, for example.

"The ultimate goal is to create a set of globally accepted metrics for datacentre energy efficiency. One of the first, and perhaps most important, factors to successfully achieving this aim is establishing a unity of communication," said Tom Brey, IBM representative and secretary of The Green Grid.

"The Green Grid is working with organisations around the world to develop a clear and well-defined language for the way we communicate about energy efficiency metrics, which will give us a common measuring stick for all datacentres regardless of their location.

He added that one this kind of consistency could be achieved, "real behavioural changes" in the industry could begin to take shape.