With talk of Microsoft and Google investing in new datacentres for hosted applications I am concerned with necessary power upgrade that is required for the national grid. With datacentres consuming apparently more than 1% of all global electricity supply it is imperative that investment is made immediately in new power stations to ensure our datacentres remain online.
However with the economic climate as it is, and demand for electricity in the UK slacking by 7% because of factories and businesses shutting down, I believe the investment will be postponed delaying the inevitable d-day of when London and other major cities run out of energy. Little bit of doom and gloom but I think an important point that seems to be overlooked as the IT industry shifts to hosted applications.
You never know it may turn out that the IT industry solves the issue and becomes power generators themselves but unlikely. In the meantime if you are looking at colocation or hosting spend a little bit of extra time finding out about contingency measures such as backup generators and UPS to ensure your system remain online.
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