Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Friday, March 29, 2024

Google Continues Green Push with ISO 50001 Certification 

<span>Google deploys its ISO 50001 certified energy management system to multiple North American datacenters. <span><br /></span></span>

As "going green" continues to gain steam, many companies are turning toward building energy-efficient datacenters. Whether the impetus is rising energy costs, public perception or genuine concern for the environment, a number of industry players have already begun this process, one of the frontrunners being Google.

According to company figures, Google's datacenters use 50 percent less energy than the typical datacenter. Since 2008, the search giant has been publishing detailed efficiency data for all of its datacenters and continues to provide regular quarterly updates. Google has even built its own custom servers that are over 93 percent efficient.

But what's even more fascinating about Google's green exploits is the new certification that it just received. As the company continuously tries to make itself even more efficient, it has succeeded in creating an energy management system (EnMS) for which it received a multi-site ISO 50001 certification.

According to a post by Joe Kava, Google's vice president of datacenters, on the official "Google green blog" site, the certification employs a "plan-do-check-act" approach.

Writes Kava: "This concept ensures we have a strong energy policy, implement sound processes that strengthen our EnMS, build a robust auditing program, continually monitor, assess, and respond to our energy efficiency results, while always working on ways to make things even better."

Energy Management System Model – Source

The EnMS system was created to challenge energy performance goals, while helping Google to create even stronger datacenter designs in terms of energy efficiency for the future.

The six datacenters in the United States that have received the certification are The Dalles, Oregon; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Mayes County, Oklahoma; Lenoir, North Carolina; Berkeley County, South Carolina; and Douglas County, Georgia.

Google is planning on extending the ISO 50001 certification to its datacenters in Europe in the near future.

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