October 3, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In a posting to its blog made earlier this week, Google described some advances it has made in data center efficiency, calling its data centers "the most efficient in the world."
The post, made Wednesday and attributed to Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of operations, includes a chart that shows Google's servers and data centers using considerably less electrical power than "typical" data centers and servers.
The chart shows Google's energy use in comparison to typical servers and data centers.
"We achieved this milestone by significantly reducing the amount of energy needed for the data center facility overhead," writes Hölzle, in the post. "Specifically, Google-designed data centers use nearly five times less energy than conventional facilities to feed and cool the computers inside. Our engineers worked hard to optimize every element in the data center, from the chip to the cooling tower."
The blog post links to a data center efficiency section on the Google site, in which the company describes in much greater detail its plans and practices for energy efficiency, walking the reader through a five-step plan that includes efficient servers, efficient data centers, water management, server retirement and "an efficient future."
On the data center site, the company points out the strategic advantage of sustainability, saying, "most of our work is focused on saving resources such as electricity and water and, more often than not, we find that these actions lead to reduced operating costs. Being 'green' is essential to keeping our business competitive. It is this economic advantage that makes our efforts truly sustainable."
Google's green ambitions go well beyond lip service, and even beyond the deep, involved effort in building its own facilities to be energy efficient. In another Wednesday blog post, Google announced its "clean energy 2030 proposal," a plan designed to wean the US off power produced by coal and oil by the year 2030.
