Jonathon G. Koomey’s recently released and highly publicized report, “Growth in Data Center Electricity Use: 2005 to 2010” is nothing like other reports that have warned that power consumption in data centers is out of control. In the past five years, we have seen article after article extrapolating from an earlier Koomey publication and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Report to Congress, suggesting that total U.S. data center energy consumption is now at 3 to 5 percent or more of total U.S. use.
In his latest update, Koomey, a Ph.D. and consulting professor at Stamford University, found that the electricity used in global data centers accounted for between 1.1 and 1.5 percent of total electricity use. In the U.S., the numbers rise to between 1.7 and 2.2 percent. This is far below the expectations set by the EPA.