Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) most recent Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey show the degree to which office buildings with data centers exceed those without in cooling, computing, and total electricity intensity (consumption per square foot).

A data center is a group of networked computer servers that performs functions such as data storage and processing and is housed in one location, usually a secure area. Data centers typically operate around the clock, are typically kept very cool to avoid failures associated with overheating and may require a dedicated uninterruptible power supply.

An estimated 97,000 commercial buildings—about 2% of all U.S. commercial buildings—have data centers. Image credit: Pixabay. Cooling electricity intensity in buildings with data centers was found to be almost double that of other buildings in both the smallest category (50,000 square feet or less) and largest category (greater than 200,000 square feet) of office buildings surveyed—and triple that of buildings in the middle category (50,001–200,000 square feet). Total electricity intensity in buildings with data centers is 87%, 60%, and 20% higher than in buildings without data centers in the small, medium and large building categories, respectively.

Computing electricity intensity (which includes electricity used by servers and data centers, in addition to desktop computers, laptops and monitors) is 35% higher for buildings greater than 200,000 square feet, and three times higher for all other buildings.

According to EIA, an estimated 97,000 commercial buildings—about 2% of the commercial building population—have data centers. More than half of these are office buildings. Data centers are also located in approximately 13,000 education buildings, 6,000 nonrefrigerated warehouses, 4,500 laboratories and 4,000 inpatient healthcare buildings.

EIA says the typical data center footprint is slightly more than 2,000 square feet, an average of 2% of the total size of buildings that have them. In aggregate, data center floor space within U.S. commercial buildings totals about 194 million square feet, about half of which is in office buildings.