Today, many Internet centric companies are using power hungry per U and/or blade servers. Often, these types of server configurations can require up to 60 to 120 amps of power per rack. Legacy telecom data centers built in the late 1990s can just not accommodate these types of power requirements. More and more data center facilities are offering high density colocation service options for their clients. For larger clients, power costs tend to average 51% of their monthly colocation costs. In this article, we will review some of the best States in the domestic US to find low power rates and we will also take a look at some of the more popular colocation data centers with cheap power….
To find the best power rates, we looked at the US Energy Administration website which summarized commercial power rates for 2012. On the East Coast, Virginia was at 8.27 cents per Kilowatthour and North Carolina at 8.59 cents per Kilowatthour. Northern Virginia is a hotbed for data center activity and has some of the best pricing and data center facilities on the East Coast. Both Equinix and Dupont Fabros offer tier 3 data centers in Ashburn which offer up to 15kw per cabinet and cross connects to all major tier 1 bandwidth providers. Major Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Apple have all built massive private data centers in North Carolina because of both cheap power and lower real estate costs. Power is cheaper in NC because the majority of it is sourced from coal and nuclear which are the cheapest forms of electric generation.
On the West Coast, Washington State comes in at the lowest at 7.72 cents per Kilowatthour (compared to California which was 12.21 cents per Kilowatthour). Along with cheap power rates, the State of Washington has passed some “data center friendly” tax breaks to encourage large companies to build data centers in the region. Large private built data centers like Microsoft and Yahoo have taken advantage of these tax incentives and cheap power rates in recent years.
In the Mountain Region, Utah wins the lowest power rate battle at 7.79 cents per Kilowatthour. Along with its cheap power rates, Utah is also an attractive destination for companies looking for a disaster recovery facility because of its relatively low incidence of disasters and abundant supply of high tech workers. In Salt Lake City, ViaWest operates a 90,000 square foot SSAE16 compliant colocation facility that caters to medium and enterprise clients. Local provider, C7 Data Centers, also offers SSAE16 compliant data centers in Salt Lake City, Bluffdale and Lindon, UT.
Finally, the State of Oklahoma comes in with the power rates in the domestic US at 7.13 cents per Kilowatthour. 7.79 cents per Kilowatthour. Perimeter Technology offers retail colocation space in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
If power costs are a concern, make sure you shop around. Try a few of the providers above or feel free to contact us and we will source you some direct quotes from some low cost data center colocation providers.