Despite plentiful meetings and conferences, there is still little near-term prospect of state-backed incentives to reduce datacentre power consumption. Thankfully, however, enlightened self-interest on behalf of IT vendors and buyers is likely to bypass the need for red tape.

Many experts see datacentres as an important and growing aspect of the energy problem while IT directors are faced with mounting power bills and a stack of contrasting advice on how to best cool the server room.

It is a classic case for state intervention, some argue, and for carrots and sticks to reward the good and penalise the bad. However, technology firms and buyers are already well aware of the importance of performance per watt. It is in the interests of all IT equipment makers to pursue low-power and all the giants are well advanced in their efforts.

Benchmarking datacentre power efficiency, by contrast, is a complicated affair. The smart money will be on datacentre experts solving the power conundrum ahead of the legislators.