GLOBAL DATA CENTER ENERGY DEMAND AND STRATEGIES TO CONSERVE ENERGY
Nuoa Lei, Eric R. Masanet · 2021
Growth in global digitalization has led to a proliferation of digital services touching nearly every aspect of modern life. Data centers provide the digital backbone of our increasingly interconnected world, and demand for the data processing, storage, and communication services that data centers provide is increasing rapidly. Historically, two primary methods have been used for modeling data center energy use at the global level: bottom-up methods and extrapolation-based methods based on macro-level indicators. Given the importance of data centers to the global economy, the scale of their current energy use, and the possibility of significant service demand growth, there is increasing interest in forward-looking analyses that assess future data center energy use. Data center energy efficiency opportunities are numerous but generally fall into two major categories: improved IT hardware efficiency and improved infrastructure systems efficiency. Key strategies within each category are summarized.