SerVICe management - UKCMG

Energy
MANAGEMENT:
AND THE
DANGER
OF DOING
NOTHING
Stuart Sawle explains why it’s essential for
organizations with an investment in IT to get to grips
with energy management sooner rather than later.
A few months back, I put my Green IT hat
on and went to a meeting in London to
learn more about the Carbon Management
Association. Our host was Lord Redesdale,
a Lib-Dem peer and former spokesman on
energy.
Lord Redesdale opened the meeting with
a startling projection. The government
estimates that the UK will need around
30 to 35GW of new electricity generation
capacity over the next two decades as many
of the UK’s current coal and nuclear power
stations, built in the 1960s and 1970s, reach
the end of their lives and are set to close.
He went onto highlight three specific
concerns for anyone engaged in IT
management. The first is that there will be
insufficient energy available to satisfy peak
demand from 2015 onwards. The second
is that the price of energy is set to rise
even more sharply than it has so far as the
combined effects of the Climate Change
Levy and the underlying increase in cost
of energy continues. His third point was
that IT infrastructure continues to expand
massively and is set to consume around 10%
of the UK electricity supply (if it doesn’t do
so already)!
A study from IT services supplier
Computacenter and Fujitsu Siemens
Computers, for example, shows that the
26 SERVICE TALK SPRING 2013
UK’s top 200 listed companies waste more
than £61m in electricity a year by not
maximizing the energy efficiency of their
desktop computers. With the IT industry
accounting for more carbon emissions than
the airline industry our appetite for energy
seems almost insatiable.
Data Centres continue to grow exponentially
and, even though the latest servers are
more energy efficient, the number deployed
is ever-rising. These large-scale data centres
already exceed the capacity of some urban
electricity sub-stations and organizations
that have data centres in central London
and Canary Wharf are already moving to the
country.
In these circumstances, is it not
incredible that IT managers are rarely
held accountable for the energy cost of
the IT deployed to support the business?
Sure, many have implemented powermanagement
software on desktop PCs, but
this is rarely ever part of a coherent energy
management strategy.
There is a real need to extend the
education of IT professionals to include
energy management as part of their
responsibilities. The ISEB Foundation Course
in Green IT (see side-bar) is a significant
first step but more - much more - needs to
be done urgently.
Government policy
In its annual energy statement (Nov 2011),
the Department of Energy and Climate
Change said government policies would
increase the cost of electricity by 27% by
2020.
In the supporting documentation for the
UK Climate Change Bill, the government
forecasts a 20% shortfall in electricity
forecast for the years 2015-2017. This is due
to a number of factors that create ‘a perfect
storm’.
• Dirty, coal powered power stations that
fail to meet agreed emission targets must
close by 2015.
• Existing Magnox nuclear power stations
are reaching the end of their life.
• Wind, renewables and AGR nuclear plants
will not cover the shortfall.
• Reduced demand due to the recession has
delayed the build of new capacity. Even if
the building programme is restarted, it is
unlikely that any new plants will be online
before 2017.
This is why Sysop is continuing to work very
closely with Lord Redesdale (Chairman of
the Carbon Management Association) to
develop a package of training courses to