Data Center Energy Costs Skyrocket

The cost of energy skyrocketed from 2005 to 2006 in the tri-state area, especially on Long Island, with energy costs increasing 85 percent. For financial firms, the additional energy costs could amount to millions of dollars per year, depending on the size of their data centers in and around Manhattan.On the Island, the cost of energy went from 14 cents per kilowatt/hour in 2005 to 26 cents per kilowatt/hour in 2006, the most recent year where data is available. James Dow, principle and CTO, at CS Technology Inc. said during the "Data Center Efficiency" workshop at the SIFMA Technology Management Conference, every one-cent increase in energy costs per kilowatt/hour can amount to a $3 million increase per year in energy and cooling costs in a large data center.

Moreover, for every dollar spent on powering the servers and equipments in a data center, firms should expect to spend another dollar to as much as $2 or $3 to cool the hardware, said Julius Neudorfer, director of network services, Noth American access technologies.

However, with millions of dollars riding on the efficiency of data centers, surprisingly only about 15 people attended the afternoon session at the conference. So much for the green movement on Wall Street. I guess people will start paying attention when CFOs begin calling people to their respective offices to explain huge ConEd bills. Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio