Demand grows, but data centers don’t hog power

Net uses barely over 1 percent of U.S. electricity, study says

Data centers are sucking up more electricity as more people and organizations log on to the Internet. But there’s been some disagreement over how power-hungry the servers running the nation’s network are.

Take the previously accepted belief — now dismissed as inaccurate — that the Internet and all the computer equipment in the nation requires 13 percent of total electricity use in the United States.


A study released Wednesday says that energy consumption at data centers is growing rapidly, doubling from 2000 to 2005, according to a report by Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientist of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a consulting professor at Stanford University.

But overall, the amount energy servers consume is only about 1.2 percent of the electricity used in the country, although the rate at which it has grown might still be cause for worry.

San Francisco Chronicle