by Shane Henson — August 7, 2013—Facilities managers responsible for their building’s data centers may soon be able to lower their energy costs through taking advantage of emerging technologies. According to a new report by IMS Research, a supplier of market research and consultancy to the global electronics industry, emerging cooling technologies aimed at reducing operational expenses within data centers will have the largest compound average growth rate (CAGR) among all cooling technologies, with a CAGR of 13.1 percent over the next five years.
Such cost savings are becoming critical as operational expenses within data centers keep rising, due not only to increasing power densities but also to the growing importance of information technology operations in business activities, according to the report, titled The World Market for Data Center Cooling—2013 Edition.
“Cooling equipment in general consumes anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the total energy use of a typical data center,” said Andrés Gallardo, research analyst for data center and critical infrastructure at IHS, owner of IMS Research. “The apparatus is necessary to run a data center, but it does not have a direct impact on any company’s revenues. Even so, cost-saving strategies could significantly reduce this expense and allow the company to allocate those resources to revenue-generating activities.”
For their part, emerging cooling technologies are expected to grow at nearly three times the forecast rate of the total data center cooling market, even though they remain just a small part of the market. These technologies include water and air-side economizers, evaporative and adiabatic cooling and custom air handlers, says IMS Research.
“The fact is that data center managers and designers are looking for ways to reduce operational costs,” Gallardo added. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, and that is why there is such a low installed base. As the ‘meat-locker’ mentality starts to fade away and people realize that it is possible to reliably run a data center at 72 degrees Fahrenheit—or even as high as 90 degrees—as opposed to 50 degrees, these technologies could eventually reach mainstream users.”
