Green Data Centre Market To Skyrocket

The worldwide market for environmentally friendly data centre technologies is expected to see strong growth over the next seven years, according to a new study, which sees it reaching $221.49bn (£143bn) by 2022 – more than eight times its size in 2014.

The study is the latest indication of growing pressures to adopt energy-efficient data centre technologies, as the expansion of cloud-based technologies fuels a boom in the construction of power-hungry Internet facilities.

US-based Transparency Market Research, the worldwide green data centre market stood at $25.87bn last year and is set to grow at a compount annual rate of 30.8 percent over the next seven years, as energy-efficient technologies are adopted in the IT, telecommunications and banking and finance sectors.

Key factors driving growth are expected to include an increased enterprise emphasis on energy efficiency, as well as tighter government regulation and the attraction of benefits such as reduced operating costs.

The study identified the introduction of advanced cooling technologies as a key market opportunity, while other significant trends in the market are expected to include a growing reliance upon renewable energy and the establishment of data centres in low-temperature regions in order to take advantage of lower cooling costs.

Transparency found that North America was the largest adopter of green data centre technologies last year, driven by demand in the IT and telecoms industries.

New players are likely to enter the “moderately consolidated” market through partnerships and mergers, with some of the current key players including Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Fujitsu, IBM and HP, according to the study. Other significant competitors include Dell, Eaton, EMC, Emerson Network Power, Hitachi and Schneider Electric, Transparency said.

Cloud giant Amazon Web Services last month received an open letter from customers urging it to reveal its energy usage, and shortly afterward a new campaign group was set up to push the service to shift to clean energy sources for its servers by 2020.

Launched by environmental lobby group Green America, the campaign is called “Amazon: Build a Cleaner Cloud” and argues that in its focus on climate change and low-carbon energy use, Amazon lags behind most companies – including Apple, Google, and Facebook – that operate large-scale data centres.

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