Rachel Kelly, Channel NewsAsia 4 Nov 09;
SINGAPORE: Businesses around the world have been ramping up their efforts to go green. Experts said on Wednesday one aspect of their operations, which could offer major energy savings, is the information communications technology sector.
Data centres, commonly used by firms to store and archive information, could be streamlined to be more efficient. This can, in turn, help companies save around 20 per cent on energy costs.
Uwe Schlager, managing director, T-Systems, Singapore, said: "The power usage (of a data centre) depends on a lot of different factors. It starts with the building, the height of the ceiling, the allocation of the racks and servers in the centre, humidity and so on.
"We have, in Germany, a project called 'Data Centre 2020'. We are making the parameters flexible and trying to figure out an ideal setup for a data centre. At the moment, power usage factor is 1.6 to 1.7, and we want to bring it down to a factor of 1.3 - that means 20 per cent less power consumption in data centres."
Here in Singapore, T-Systems have already managed to cut down the usage of energy in its data centres. Previously, its Singapore operations emit carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 14 flights from Singapore to New York. This has now been cut down to three flights' worth.
The firm said this is a cost saving which can then be passed on to customers.
At the start of the year, Japanese IT services company Fujitsu Asia also opened what it dubbed the "Data Centre of the Future", which is expected to cut energy usage by 30 per cent.
Overall, some analysts said the ICT industry currently produces 832 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This is expected to reach 1.4 billion tonnes by 2020.
- CNA/so
