Technologies that help businesses use power more efficiently should become a bigger money-maker in the next decade, even if surging demand for data means overall energy use in the tech sector will still rise.
Executives at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit this week said businesses often see saving money as a way to help reduce their environmental impact by cutting waste, particularly of power.
IBM, for example, consults with customers on how to streamline power use in their data centers, sometimes even forestalling the need to build new facilities.
"In the fourth quarter we did $300 million worth of business signings in green data centres," IBM chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said, referring to deals to develop computer operations that consume less power.
"There's going to be more demand," he said.
EMC has introduced data storage systems that use less power by spinning down disk drives when they aren't being used, for instance.
"We are trying to help customers manage that growth," EMC chief financial officer David Goulden said. "They equate green to energy costs and energy being one of the biggest drivers of data center costs."
With data use growing at about 60 per cent annually, total energy use will rise from the technology sector, executives predicted. But companies will find ways to reduce individual consumption.
"If you look at power consumed per employee, I absolutely expect that we will consume less power because we are driving things like server consolidation," Symantec chief operating officer Enrique Salem said.
One major form of server consolidation is the push to use software to let a single computer do the work of many machines, a process known as virtualization, which also saves energy.
VMware expects 50 per cent revenue growth this year, riding on a wave of virtualization.
"We estimate something like 6 million servers have been virtualized since we started with VMware," chief executive Diane Greene said. "We've saved approximately the ... power that Denmark uses in a year."
Applied Materials sees growth in its business for coating glass with a film that helps insulate large office buildings, reducing both cooling and heating costs.
"When there is a building boom in Dubai or Shanghai or Beijing or Mumbai, glass companies in those areas start to buy our machines," Applied Materials chief executive Mike Splinter said.
While corporate customers see an immediate financial benefit to reducing power use, the average consumer may not be ready to relinquish the shiny wrappings of technology.
For example, Virgin Mobile USA tried to deliver cell phones in a recycled paper carton.
"We found that consumers walked away from it because they thought the phone was cheap as a result of the packaging," Virgin Mobile USA chief executive Dan Schulman said.
But Fujitsu executive vice president Chiaki Ito said consumers should find it easier to make simple, green choices.
"For instance, now many people use cell phones as a substitute for a PC to check (email). This reduces the consumption of energy," he said.
