Data centers consume a lot of energy. Legrand is therefore aiming to reduce PuE (Power usage Effectiveness), an indicator that measures the energy efficiency of a data center by comparing total consumption with that of IT and telecom equipment.
CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES
Data centers consume a lot of energy: 259 Twh in Europe by 2020, or 1.7% of global electricity consumption (source: European Commission).
Energy-intensive buildings
For example :
- Typical data center consumes 10 to 100 times more energy per square meter than a standard office building.
- The consumption of a 10,000 m² data center is equal to that of a city of 50,000 inhabitants.
- Over 10 years, the operating cost of a data center is equivalent to its installation cost.
- The electricity bill represents 10 to 15% of the operating cost.
A growing ecological footprint
The ecological footprint of data centers continues to grow: in the next 10 years, it is estimated that there will be 30 times more data (90% of which will be unstructured) and 1000 times more servers. At this rate, energy requirements could double within 5 years. Reducing the carbon footprint and acting on the energy efficiency of data centers is therefore a necessity in order to reduce consumption and costs.