With the spotlight firmly on sustainability following COP26, Inspired Energy has launched an industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) Calculator to highlight the energy efficiency of data centres. The brand new tool has been designed to help energy intensive data centres simply and quickly identify the potential energy, carbon and financial savings they could make through energy efficiency measures.
Inspired Energy’s PUE Calculator is an online tool which helps data centres measure the impact of their PUE. PUE is a way for data centres to understand how efficient they are, by taking into account the ratio of IT load to total facility load. While it’s a good benchmark, it becomes really effective when the score can be used to look at how energy savings can be made – and this is where the PUE Calculator comes into its own.
Taking just five minutes to complete, the PUE Calculator is available online now for all data centres to use. Once a user has generated their PUE score, all they need to do is enter their ‘desired future PUE score’ into the calculator and it will show what the IT and facility loads need to be to reach the new score. The tool will then provide the user with both the financial savings and carbon savings of reducing their PUE to the desired level.
Importantly, through highlighting the potential energy savings a data centre can make, the PUE Calculator is a powerful tool which then enables businesses to plan and implement energy saving initiatives to help meet sustainability goals and manage operating costs.
As well as increasing energy costs putting pressure on data centres to reduce their carbon emissions, in January 2021 The European Data Centre Association launched ‘The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact’. The self-regulatory initiative supports the EU’s climate neutral by 2030 goal.
James Miles, Head of Specialist Accounts at Inspired Energy PLC, comments: “We have worked in partnership with over 130 data centre sites and this has given us a unique and in-depth understanding of the specific efficiency challenges they face. The development of the PUE Calculator is the result of us wanting to find a simple, yet effective way for those responsible for energy management to take their current PUE and look at the potential energy efficiency savings that can be made. Insight is one of the most powerful tools we all have on the road to net zero, as it is only through understanding energy usage and the potential for efficiency, that we can put in place plans to meet our goals and really make a difference to our businesses and our planet.”
Inspired Energy is a specialist in the data centre sector and has developed the PUE Calculator following extensive work in partnership with its customers in the industry. The energy consultancy helps data centres with 100% renewable energy procurement, as well as providing expert guidance on all aspects of utility and carbon management.
