Video: Renewable Energy and Data Centers

As organizations like Greenpeace pressure Internet companies to use more energy from renewable sources, data center operators are struggling with the best approach to renewable power. To get some perspective on the issue, we spoke with John Stanley, a researcher at The 451 Group who specializes in “Eco-Efficient IT” and the intersection between data centers and sustainability. “I think data centers need to get away from this idea that they’re going to put enough solar panels on the roof to power the entire data center,” said Stanley. “That’s just not practical… You will always need grid power to supplement what your on-site renewables are generating.” So are renewable energy credits (RECS) a good solution, or an “environmental indulgence?” John provides an overview of how RECs work and the pros and cons for using them to account for energy usage by data center operators. This video runs about 11 minutes.

See our Green Data Center Channel for more on efficiency and energy-aware design. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

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About Rich Miller

Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.