March 20, 2008 - Datacenter energy consumption jumped 30% last year, far outpacing U.S. EPA predictions for 9% growth, according to a new study from Uptime Research. Sixty-five percent of companies surveyed expect their computing needs to outstrip current datacenter power capacity within five years, and 41% say they could run out of power in just two.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of those surveyed (54%) cite data center capacity as the top driver for IT energy efficiency initiatives, followed by financial pressures (32%) and the threat of government regulation (8%). Other highlights from the report:

• Two out of three companies are planning major datacenter expansions. Nineteen percent are expanding current facilities, 22% are constructing new facilities, and nearly 30% are undertaking a combination of both.
• Short of adding new servers, companies are working to boost energy efficiency through improved heating and cooling (80%), virtualization (74%), measuring and predicting energy demand (66%), and turning off dead servers (56%). Relatively few report implementing such low-hanging fruit as using power-saving features (33%) and changing expense structures to make business units more aware of their energy consumption (19%).
  
• Forty-two percent of respondents say they take green IT initiatives "very seriously," while 43% consider environmental performance a secondary concern. However, more than two-thirds admit that their company has yet to develop green policies at the C-suite or board levels.
  

Download the full report here (PDF). To listen to report author Kenneth Brill discuss his findings, click here.