Survey: State and local IT departments are reducing energy use
Sixty-two percent of local and state government information technology (IT) departments have or are developing programs to manage and reduce energy use in IT, according to Vernon Hills, Ill.-based CDW Government’s (CDW-G) (IT) 2010 Energy Efficient IT Report. The annual report also says that 64 percent of state and local governments have reduced IT energy costs by 1 percent or more.
From on a July survey of 756 IT professionals in the public and private sectors who purchase IT equipment, CDW-G found that three-quarters of respondents are working to reduce energy use in IT operations, from the desktop to the data center. Organizations undertake IT energy reduction efforts to reduce costs and to lower their environmental impact, according to the survey. “Energy efficiency is no longer an afterthought, but a key requirement in many organizations’ IT purchasing plans,” said Norm Lillis, CDW’s vice president for system solutions. “Not only is excess energy consumption a drain on budgets, it also limits the ability of IT managers to provide more and better IT services to employees and customers when aging data centers approach the limits of their power sources. Improving energy efficiency is often the only way to enable improved computing performance in a power-constrained environment.”
Other survey findings about state and local governments include:
• 14 percent have flattened or reduced IT energy use, but increasing prices of electricity continue to drive up IT energy costs.
• 77 percent have or are developing a specific data center consolidation strategy aimed at reducing energy use.
• 68 percent are familiar with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star rating for Data Centers programs, but only
• 11 percent track power use effectiveness, the core measurement for the EPA program.
The survey respondents also said that the remaining barriers to further reducing their IT energy use include too little budget left for more efficient systems after meeting internal client demands, and that the people who pay their organization’s energy bills do not pay attention to IT’s energy use.
Download a copy of the complete report.
