U.S. Computer Servers Use More Electricity than All of Mississippi

Logo of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says network servers in the U.S. consumed a total of 45 million KWH of energy in 2005. And this appetite is growing.

There has been a doubling of computers’ electricity consumption over five years between 2000 and 2005, most of it due to the widespread adoption of lower-end servers costing less than $25,000.

The study included supporting infrastructure such as data center air conditioning and lighting, but not other computing equipment such as storage arrays or network switches which would have added another one-third that of servers.

Throughout the world, the study estimated server power consumption in 2005 to be about 123 million KWH.

[Via: CNET News]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.