This IDC study examines the mounting electrical expense to power and cool the worldwide installed base of servers and forecasts this expense for the next five years. An analysis is provided on the factors causing the increase and the resulting impact on the datacenter and the business organization. To provide proper market context, historical and forecast data is shown for new server spending and server installed base. This study does not include hardware expenses associated with power and cooling equipment.

"Powering and cooling the datacenter has become a top priority for IT executives. In 2005, $26.1 billion was spent to power and cool the worldwide installed base of servers," said Jed Scaramella, research analyst, Enterprise Servers. "Over the next five years, the expense to power and cool the worldwide installed base of servers is projected to grow four times compared with the growth rate for new server spending."