policy summary
In 2006, the 109th Congress passed into law a bill "To Study and Promote the Use of Energy Efficient Computer Servers in the United States" (H.R. 5646). The law required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct a study on the energy consumption of data centers used by federal agencies and private institutions in order to analyze the efficiencies of their servers and to predict the future growth and costs of such entities. The EPA subsequently submitted a report in 2007 with findings from their study conducted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and made recommendations to improve the energy efficiency of national data centers. Their recommendations included: developing a standardized performance rating system (one that takes into account the total amount of data handled by the given server and budgetary/resource limitations); joint federal and private initiatives to conduct assessments of the energy efficiency of data centers and to outline priorities/goals for continuing efforts to improve such systems; and relying on the government to lead the nation in improving energy efficiency of data centers by implementing cost effective operational improvements (which the report also outlines) and periodically reporting on the performance and costs of their systems, and using these reports to develop plans to improve the systems further.
There is currently no federal law that requires government agencies to assess and report on the energy efficiency of their own data servers, much less one that requires private companies to do so. In a 2012 New York Times Article entitled "Power, Pollution and the Internet" the author writes:
"'For security reasons, companies typically do not even reveal the locations of their data centers, which are housed in
anonymous buildings and vigilantly protected. Companies also guard their technology for competitive reasons,' said Michael Manos, a longtime industry executive. 'All of those things play into each other to foster this closed, members-only kind of
group,' he said."
The lack of public disclosure of information regarding companies' data centers, as well as the government's inability to account for the overall performance of its own agencies' data centers are the primary impediments to developing and implementing changes that will decrease the amount of energy that is currently wasted by data centers.
There is currently no federal law that requires government agencies to assess and report on the energy efficiency of their own data servers, much less one that requires private companies to do so. In a 2012 New York Times Article entitled "Power, Pollution and the Internet" the author writes:
"'For security reasons, companies typically do not even reveal the locations of their data centers, which are housed in
anonymous buildings and vigilantly protected. Companies also guard their technology for competitive reasons,' said Michael Manos, a longtime industry executive. 'All of those things play into each other to foster this closed, members-only kind of
group,' he said."
The lack of public disclosure of information regarding companies' data centers, as well as the government's inability to account for the overall performance of its own agencies' data centers are the primary impediments to developing and implementing changes that will decrease the amount of energy that is currently wasted by data centers.