Green Data Centers
Equinix is committed to the environment and use of green technologies in our data centers.
View Green Data CentersPower Usage Effectiveness at Equinix
Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is an important industry metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data center’s infrastructure under normal operating conditions. It’s calculated using the following formula:
Total energy entering the data center
Energy used by IT equipment inside the data center
PUE =
Energy use beyond what's consumed by IT equipment powers essential data center services such as cooling, lighting, power distribution and power conversion.
Evaluating Data Center PUE
PUE helps track power usage trends in an individual facility over time and measures the effects of different design and operational decisions. It’s best used as a facility-specific benchmark, not a numeric basis for comparing different data centers. PUE is affected by site-specific variables, including:
Design, construction and age of the facility
Newer data centers typically have more energy-efficient designs and equipment.
Energy efficiency of IT equipment housed within the facility
Newer servers and machines can often handle greater workloads while drawing less power.
Utilization rate of the data center facility
Densely occupied facilities that house lots of IT equipment will have lower PUEs than facilities still attracting new tenants and ramping up occupancy.
Our Commitment
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Equinix is committed to lowering our PUE through a mix of capital investments, improved design standards, best practices and operational discipline. By maximizing environmental and ambient conditions where possible (such as by using fresh air cooling), we expect to lower our PUE even more.
