IT is no energy drain, says California official
- Posted:
- 15:51 04 Jul 2001
- Topics:
- Servers
The power shortage that led to rolling electricity blackouts in the state "isn't really a function of the computer industry [or] server farms," said Claudia Chandler, assistant executive director of the California Energy Commission. "Computers have probably saved us more energy than they have used."
Chandler's comments contradict contentions made in January by the electric power industry's research arm and some local utilities in California. Officials from those organisations cited a big increase in electricity demand in areas where Internet hubs and datacentres have come online, with one saying that such facilities can consume more power than large manufacturing plants.
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For example, Silicon Valley Power, the municipal utility for the city of Santa Clara, said it saw a 12% increase in demand for electricity last year. A spokesman said the utility's power load could double in the next two to three years, with 80% of the new requests for energy coming from Internet datacentres.
But Chandler said the state government looked into the claims and found that electricity use in Silicon Valley has only risen 1% more than it has in the rest of California over the past ten years. She described the argument that the Internet and the IT industry have played a significant role in the state's electricity crisis as "urban myth number five".
"I have spent a lot of time debunking this," Chandler said. She attributed the IT power usage claims to lobbyists for the coal industry, charging that they suggested server farms and datacentres located in Silicon Valley were driving up the state's electricity consumption as part of an attempt to promote the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Chandler also dismissed predictions that this summer could be marked by massive rolling blackouts in the state, noting there were only two such events in May and none last month. Conservation efforts by California residents and businesses have paid off, Chandler said, adding that energy consumption declined by 11% in May and 14% in June on a year-to-year basis.
People working in the IT industry can do their bit by turning off their computers at the end of the day and by putting their machines in sleep mode when they're at work, Chandler said. In a recent survey, she added, 89% of respondents said they leave their systems on all night - a practice that the state hopes to curb.
