Energy bill spotlights datacenters

Legislation calls for development of benchmarks and standards for datacenter energy usage — similar to The Green Grid’s goals

Datacenters have not been entirely forgotten in the proposed energy bill put forth by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. In fact, the draft legislation has an entire section aimed squarely at addressing energy consumption in these oower-hungry IT hubs.

Specifically, a section of the “Energy Independence Bill,” as dubbed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would require the Department of Energy and the EPA to consult with members of the IT industry and devise a voluntary information program aimed at datacenter operators. “There is a potential for significant data center energy savings as a result of such a program,” the bill reads.

The program would provide specifications, measurements, and benchmarks that would enable datacenter admins to “make more informed decisions about the energy efficiency and costs of data centers.”

It would reflect total energy consumption of datacenters, including the performance and utilization of servers, data storage devices, and other equipment; the efficiency of HVAC systems; energy savings from the adoption of software and data management techniques; and other factors.

Interestingly, the bill would have legislators designate an information technology industry organization to coordinate the program. By a remarkable coincidence, such an industry organization already exists: The Green Grid, a consortium of organizations and individuals seeking to lower overall power consumption in data centers. Members include big-name tech companies like Microsoft, HP, Sun, and Google.

The Green Grid, which went public last February, has already set out to achieve the very same goals laid out in this proposed information program. In fact, the group had its first technical summit in April.

Whether or not this energy bill ends up passing, I surely hope that the Feds and The Green Grid can sync up on the project of setting specs and benchmarks for measuring datacenter energy consumption — as opposed to working separately, which would be wasteful and redundant.

You can read the entirety of the energy bill right here. The portion about the datacenter information program is in Committee Print #1.