Unsurprisingly the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is now a tax

With the change in the Government’s approach to the revenue collected from the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (formerly known as the Carbon Reduction Commitment) scheme, it has now become more important to focus on reducing carbon emissions (CO2_E) from the data centre.

As the revenue is now perceived as a tax, the probability of the tax rate, currently set at £12 per tonne CO2, of increasing over time is high.

A tonne of CO2 is equates to about 500 Kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy. Assuming 500kWh costs about £40 to purchase, the new tax equates to a £12 surcharge; a tax rate of 30%!.

At best the rate will stay the same but as IT departments are planning to expand their use of technology, as predicted by Gartner (see Just implementing technology will not solve your energy problems!), over the coming years, reducing carbon emissions may not be an easy task.

Although technology is playing it’s part in helping to reduce the energy consumed per device, the increased demand for new equipment, and therefore devices, will increase energy demand and with it CO2 emissions.

Taken with the expected doubling of raw energy costs over the next decade, (also covered in Just implementing technology will not solve your energy problems!), organisations will be further squeezed on their energy budgets.; this is an inefficiency that can be avoided.

Effecting change in the data centre is not a short term activity and avoiding or limiting the impact of a growing energy budget on investment in IT should be considered before costs, and possibly the availability of energy, limit business capability.

IT and Data Centre professionals are not naturally skilled in energy and CO2_E reduction management, therefore the first order of business should be to acquire and retain the skill, preferably through training. Enhancing skills through training can be highly cost efficient and unlike hiring a consulting service, the skill does not leave the organisation once the task is completed.

For a more in-depth overview of the skills needed read Rise of the Green IT Manager

Dimension 85 specialises in Data Centre Energy Efficiency Management.  and carbon reduction training in the data centre; You can contact Dimension 85 on the Dimension 85 website.