Greentech Media expects so-called “green IT” to take off this year, and not for the reasons you might expect:
Green IT stands as one of the largest potential markets in clean energy and efficiency.Datacenters only account for approximately 2 percent of U.S. electricity consumption. Utilities, however, are in many parts of the country capping the power that datacenters can buy. This puts banks and web companies like Google in an uncomfortable position: either don't grow your business or find ways to squeeze out more calculations per watt. As a result, green datacenter equipment isn't an option like solar panels or fuel cells might be. It has become a necessity.
Whether “efficient” is automatically synonymous with “green” is a good question, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.