Iceland is leading the way towards a cleaner, more sustainable future. Already it uses more geothermal energy than any other country and over 90% of its buildings are powered by low-carbon technology. Businesses in the UK have the opportunity to take advantage of Iceland’s cheap and low-carbon resources, making substantial financial savings and at the same time mitigating climate change by reducing their data centre carbon footprint and moving to a ‘green cloud’ service.
Data Centre Carbon Footprints Match Airlines
This year Facebook revealed its yearly carbon footprint; 285,000 metric tons of carbon– that’s about the same as running 56,000 cars each year. A massive 72% of those emissions came directly from data centres. This is not unusual by any means. Last year it was estimated that data centres were responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions – that’s nearly as much as airlines.
The cost of running a data centre generally accounts for around 25% of total corporate IT budgets, however the cost of maintaining them is increasing as more power capacity is demanded each year. Infrastructure and energy costs have increased by as much as 20% each year, yet IT spending budgets are only increasing at a rate of 6% per year.
This growing carbon footprint is of global concern, if not for the acceleration of climate change, but for the financial capability of businesses to continue running data centres. It is expected that many businesses will suffer deteriorating facilities and generate unnecessary wastage. Already, running a data centre is extremely costly – last year global expenditure was £14.46 billion. So what can businesses do about this? The answer, naturally, is in Iceland.
Data Centres Powered By 100 % Renewable Power
CLevel Carbon Balanced Reduction Partner, Mason IT, a Brighton-based company, has developed several data centres near Reykjavik in Iceland – now available to UK businesses looking for green cloud services. The facilities combine state of the art technology with free services from Nature to help UK companies make both significant cost savings and carbon reduction. The data centres are powered by Iceland’s geothermal power plants and hydroelectric dams, which together constitute 99% of the energy used.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Mason IT’s data centres is the cooling technology. It is not unusual for up to 50% of energy consumed in data centres to be a result of cooling systems, and they are costly to use. But with Mason IT, cooling is free. This is achieved thanks to its location. The Icelandic climate is cool enough to naturally maintain the correct temperature for the systems operated. And because cooling is not an issue, the racks that hold the servers can go up to 8 kilowatts (kw) instead of the typcial 4 kw for the UK – which enables more cost savings.
Mason IT operates both dedicated and virtual servers, with the latter offering potential for a further 40% energy saving. And the iceing on this icelandic cake is that as a Cisco Partner, all equipment they provide for clients goes back for recycling and proper disposal at the end of its life, making for good stewardship and also avoiding any down the road disposal costs.
Green Cloud Data Centres Creating 35% Cash Savings
Iceland can be an excellent choice of location, their green cloud data centres being around 35% cheaper than those in the UK. Mason IT can provide the advice and support needed for any business, no matter what size, to relocate. And for those companies that don’t want to uproot to Iceland, they also have low carbon emission data centres in the UK.