Are data center energy forecasts overblown? Can energy efficiency trim megawatts and even gigawatts off predictions? And if so, what must data centers do to significantly curb their energy use?
These are the questions I explored in a recent conversation with Fluke’s Mike Slevin about what it really takes to make data centers more efficient.
Slevin, a business unit manager, has a unique perspective because Fluke is an international company that specializes in electronic test, measurement and monitoring equipment. This gives Slevin an inside view of data center operations.
Fluke helps data centers not only become more efficient, but also determine if they are suited for microgrids, solar, or other forms of on-site energy.
He explains how the two approaches — energy efficiency and microgrids — go hand in hand.
“Some of the data centers we’re working in, if they were fully powered by solar, you would be requiring huge acres of land to be allocated to the solar farms,” he says. “As they become more efficient, it becomes more cost-effective and largely more acceptable to have a higher percentage of power coming from these microgrid installations.”
Slevin also describes how small, everyday improvements in equipment performance add up to big savings in data center energy use, the growing role of distributed energy, and how the shift to DC power could change the game for the industry.
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