All this said, there are trends in computing power at data centers that could have power usage — though still overwhelming — heading in the right direction. There has been a tremendous increase in computing efficiency, Sterlace notes. Server virtualization can equate to up to 80% fewer servers; blade servers increase the power density of racks; and the use of ARM and RISC processors can reduce power consumption by 90%.
There is much to be gained by the current movement toward the cloud as well. While current designs are based on hardware redundancy, the cloud is based on applications redundancy, leading to a less costly infrastructure. With the cloud, the use of data centers will be more likely able to "follow the moon" to save on standard energy costs — meaning that server usage could be switched to China, for example, while the Western part of the world is at higher usage levels. Scalable deployment is also key.
Still, there are some hurdles that will need to be overcome for DC distribution to be viable on a larger scale. The National Electrical Code (NEC) doesn't yet recognize DC-only wiring, so you're not able to take full advantage of the higher power capacity of DC wiring. Grounding and arc flash standards are still in development, and there is still design work to be done.
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