IT cleared of blame in California energy crunch

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By Brian Sullivan

(IDG) -- A high-ranking energy official in California yesterday dismissed the notion that the rise in the state's IT industry has been a big contributor to the electricity problems encountered there earlier this year, saying that such claims are "ridiculous."

The power shortage that led to rolling electricity blackouts in the state "isn't really a function of the computer industry [or] server farms," said Claudia Chandler, assistant executive director of the California Energy Commission. "Computers have probably saved us more energy use than they have used."

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Chandler's comments contradict contentions made in January by the electric power industry's research arm and some local utilities in California. Officials from those organizations cited a big increase in electricity demand in areas where Internet hubs and data centers have come online, with one saying that such facilities can consume more power than large manufacturing plants (see story).

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For example, Silicon Valley Power, the municipal utility for the city of Santa Clara, said it saw a 12% increase in demand for electricity last year. A spokesman for the utility said its power load could double in the next two or three years, with 80% of the new requests for energy coming from Internet data centers.

But Chandler said the state government looked into the claims and found that electricity use in Silicon Valley has only risen 1% more than it has in the rest of California during the past 10 years. She described the argument that the Internet and the IT industry have played a significant role in the state's electricity crisis as "urban myth No. 5."

"I have spent a lot of time debunking this," Chandler said. She attributed the IT power usage claims to lobbyists for the coal industry, charging that they suggested server farms and data centers located in Silicon Valley were driving up the state's electricity consumption as part of an attempt to promote the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

Chandler also dismissed predictions that this summer could be marked by massive rolling blackouts in the state, noting that there were only two such events in May and none at all last month. Conservation efforts by California residents and businesses have paid off, Chandler said, adding that energy consumption declined 11% in May and 14% in June on a year-to-year basis.

People working in the IT industry can do their part to help by turning off their computers when they go home at the end of the day and by putting their machines in sleep mode when they're at work, Chandler said. In a recent survey, she said, 89% of the IT workers who responded said they leave their systems on all night, a practice that the state hopes to curb.