Green IT industry group the Green Grid has unveiled standards for measuring the effectiveness of carbon and water in data centers.

 

The new metrics, called Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) and the upcoming Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), join Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measure, the most widely used data center energy consumption metric.

 

PUE compares the total amount of energy consumed by the data center facility to the total amount of energy consumed by the IT equipment.

 

CUE will help managers determine the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated in delivering work from the IT gear in a data center facility, the Green Grid said. 

 

WUE will help managers determine the amount of water used by the facility and the amount used to deliver work from IT operations.

 

Decision-makers need the right tools to build and operate their data centers in a sustainable way, said Jack Pouchet, Emerson Network Power representative and Green Grid board member.

 

“CUE and WUE metrics are significant steps forward in helping data center operators measure the effectiveness of carbon and water use by their data centers.”