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Computerworld - Industry giants such as Ask.com, Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. have good reason to build data centers near inexpensive hydroelectric power sources. Their growth depends on serving tens of millions of customers, which requires massive data centers drawing huge amounts of power  no matter how efficiently they are run.

For example, lower electricity costs were a primary driver in Ask.coms decision to develop a new data center in Moses Lake, Wash., with its environmentally friendly and comparatively low-cost hydropower, says Chief Technology Officer Chuck Geiger. But the presence of an experienced workforce (and a neighboring junior college to train workers) as well as the availability of a building suitable for renovation were also important.

At Microsoft, data center power consumption has roughly doubled over the past four years and will at least triple over the next five, says Debra Chrapaty, vice president for Windows Live operations. One reason, she says, is Microsofts plan to offer customers online storage of digital data as part of its Microsoft Live Drive service. Among other moves to hold down electricity costs, Microsoft began operations in April at a new data center located near a hydropower source in Quincy, Wash.

Google says it hopes to create 50megawatts of renewable generating capacity for its data centers by 2012. The search giant also says it plans to set an internal cost of carbon based on the expected impact of future regulations.

In such cases, power represents a huge percentage of operating costs and the total cost of the data center, says Aaron Branham, vice president of technical operations at VistaPrint Ltd., an online provider of printing services for small businesses. However, he says, if youve only got one or two racks [of equipment], its probably not going to justify making a drastic change unless you really want to be environmentally conscious.

Beyond Power

In many cases, locating a data center in another part of the country to reap the benefits of low-cost power isnt an option. For some companies, certain locations could cause unacceptable delays in critical applications such as financial trading. But while most companies arent choosing to relocate data centers solely to save money on electricity, the rising cost of energy is becoming a key issue.

For VistaPrint, the trigger event behind a decision to set up a new data center in Windsor, Ontario, was a lack of space in its new headquarters in Lexington, Mass., and the need for a disaster recovery site to back up its main data center in Bermuda.