In an ideal world, your server room would operate at 100% efficiency. But typically, only 40% of the electricity consumed is actually used by your IT equipment. A staggering 60% is consumed by the server room infrastructure - air conditioning, lighting, UPS systems, etc.

Cutting your energy costs, reducing your carbon footprint
There are high financial and environmental costs attached to operating a data centre or computer room, and correspondingly large savings to be made by adopting innovative new approaches to reduce your energy usage. Within the UK many energy efficient products are registered under the Enhanced Capital Allowance Scheme which means that 100% of the costs can be claimed against taxable profits.

EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres
Comms Room Services is an official endorser of the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres. By providing recommendations and examples of best practice, the Code aims to reduce data centre energy consumption in Europe by up to 20 per cent. This would save 4.7 million tonnes of CO2 over the next six years – the equivalent of taking more than a million cars off the road. Under the guidelines of this voluntary scheme, we undertake to encourage data centre operators to become participants, and to support them by providing solutions that meet the requirements of the Code.

Design for efficient air conditioning
Inefficient cooling is one of the main contributors to energy wastage in the server room. As server room specialists, we can design your facility to minimise this - for example, by utilising hot-aisle/cold-aisle configurations.

Free Air cooling
Free Air cooling is a low cost, low carbon alternative to traditional cooling solutions for server room and data centre environments. In the UK, for much of the year the air outside the data centre can be cooler than the air inside. By exploiting this, energy consumption and consequently costs can be significantly reduced. For more information, see the Free Cooling tool on the Green Grid website.

Transformerless UPS systems
The installation of modern transformerless UPS technology significantly improves energy efficiency and can also save on floor space.

Energy-efficient lighting
Lighting systems offer great opportunities for cost-effective energy savings. Also, lighting design that reduces energy use often improves the visual working environment for your staff. Examples of energy saving strategies include taking advantage of natural daylight, installing automatic controls that turn off or dim lights when they are not needed, and using high-efficiency florescent systems.