Data centers are a vital cog in our digital world. As data centers become increasingly important, we need to look at the infrastructure behind them: the electric power grid. The grid is aging infrastructure designed in the 20th century well before the advent of digital services like those provided by data centers – and it’s simply not suited to meet the power demands of data centers.

Data centers depend on a reliable supply of electricity in order to perform 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Today’s electric infrastructure isn’t capable of providing the level of power reliability that data centers require, so these centers spend huge amounts of money on back-up systems in order to protect the facilities from power outages. There is increasing pressure to reduce the costs associated with electric service, however. A recent Gartner report showed that the annual cost to power an 8,000-square-foot data center can hit $1.6 million, and the cost is rising. These costs don’t include expenses associated with building, operating and maintaining back-up systems either. Keep reading →