Electric Perspectives -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 8/4/2001
Last Visited: 5/1/2002
Brian Casey, president of Boston-based Source One, which manages electric power for data centers in 60 cities in the United States and Canada, said the industry represents a huge new market for electric utilities.Source One estimates that tens of billions of dollars worth of electric infrastructure improvements will be needed for data centers over the next few years and that they will consume billions of dollars more worth of electricity."The energy costs are as high or higher than the actual lease costs," Casey said.Indeed, 50-60 percent of the cost of building a data center is for the power, including batteries, backup generators, and air-conditioning, as well as the cost for utility construction.
The challenge is to work with developers to make it an opportunity for everyone.
Expensive Rooms This new type of data center came about as a result of both the growth in the internet and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opened up the local phone business to competition.