United States Data Center Energy Usage Report

Technical Report · 01 June 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1372902· OSTI ID:1372902

Shehabi, Arman ^[1]; Smith, Sarah ^[1]; Sartor, Dale ^[1]; Brown, Richard ^[1]; Herrlin, Magnus ^[1]; Koomey, Jonathan ^[2]; Masanet, Eric ^[3]; Horner, Nathaniel ^[4]; Azevedo, Inês ^[4]; Lintner, William ^[5]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
3. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
4. Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
5. Dept. of Energy (DOE), Washington DC (United States)

This report estimates historical data center electricity consumption back to 2000, relying on previous studies and historical shipment data, and forecasts consumption out to 2020 based on new trends and the most recent data available. Figure ES-1 provides an estimate of total U.S. data center electricity use (servers, storage, network equipment, and infrastructure) from 2000-2020. In 2014, data centers in the U.S. consumed an estimated 70 billion kWh, representing about 1.8% of total U.S. electricity consumption. Current study results show data center electricity consumption increased by about 4% from 2010-2014, a large shift from the 24% percent increase estimated from 2005-2010 and the nearly 90% increase estimated from 2000-2005. Energy use is expected to continue slightly increasing in the near future, increasing 4% from 2014-2020, the same rate as the past five years. Based on current trend estimates, U.S. data centers are projected to consume approximately 73 billion kWh in 2020.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 1372902
• Report Number(s): LBNL-1005775; ir:1005775
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION