How To Choose Greener Data-Center Gear

Climate Savers Computing Initiative

In 2007 Google and Intel began the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, inviting makers and users of personal computers (PCs) and servers to commit to manufacture and purchase, respectively, systems that meet energy efficiency standards of 80 percent and higher at various power load levels. More than 300 companies and organizations are, as of this writing, members of the initiative.

Organizers projected that by 2010 the program could, with sufficient participation, reduce the energy-use of computers shipped that year more than 50 percent compared to 2007 and over that three-year period save 62 billion kWh of energy and avoid 54 million tons (49 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide emissions. At 8.85 cents per kWh, that totals more than $5.5 billion in avoided energy costs.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative introduces higher efficiency targets year over year, reaching their highest mark (deemed gold) in 2010.

The initiative additionally calls for participating members to include an increasing proportion of energy-efficient servers and desktops among their hardware purchases as well as commit to using power management features on their computers.

An online database of hardware that meets the Climate Saver Server Initiative standards is available at here.

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Choosing Greener Data Center Gear is is an excerpt from Grow A Greener Data Center, a Rough Cuts title from the Safari Books Online interactive publishing service. Rough Cuts are pre-published manuscripts on cutting-edge technology topics.

InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on data center unification.
Download the report here (registration required).