[LINK] Promote energy efficient data centers in Australia
Tom Worthington
tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Wed Oct 26 08:09:58 AEDT 2011
According to "Conroy could exempt data centres from carbon tax" (Andrew
Colley, The Australian, October 24, 2011 12:00AM), the Australian
government may be considering exempting large data centres from carbon
pricing:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/cloud-computing/conroy-could-exempt-data-centres-from-carbon-tax/story-fn8lu7wm-1226174429295a
This follows the Outsourcing Council Asia Pacific (OCAP) claiming two
companies had decided not to invest in "Australia, due to carbon
pricing: Dark carbon cloud over new technologies" (OCAP, 21 October
2011):
http://blog.outsourcingcouncil.com.au/post/11682889804/media-release-dark-carbon-cloud-over-new-technologies
The OCAP was formed 16 September 2011 as a not-for-profit organisation
to promote outsourcing and shared services: "Registration, OUTSOURCING
COUNCIL ASIA PACIFIC (AUST) LIMITED", (ASIC, 16/09/2011):
http://www.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?acn=153_268_752&juris=9&hdtext=ACN&srchsrc=1
Rather than exempt data centres, I suggest the government could provide
incentives for new data centres to be set up to use energy efficiently.
This would provide a competitive advantage for Australian centers
internationally, as organizations and individuals look for low carbon
data services.
Some ways the federal government could assist would be to require a high
level of energy efficiency in the tenders it issues for its own data
services. The government could also accelerate the current work on
metrics for data centers so that there would be a way to measure
progress. Additional training for IT professionals, engineers,
architects and facility management staff would also be useful so that
they would know how to specify and design for efficiency.
Methods for data centres to reduce energy use are discussed in "ICT
Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future":
http://www.tomw.net.au/ict_sustainability/saving.shtml
--
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
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