Prolog to: "Estimating the Energy Use and Efficiency Potential of U.S. Data Centers"

This paper offers a concise new mathematical modeling approach for estimating data center energy use and efficiency potentials at different geographic scales. It improves analytical cohesiveness and transparency, and it is accessible and open to refinements. It also adds new in sights into electricity saving potentials and efficiency measures by allowing the estimation of potentials associated with discrete measures applied to different classes of IT devices and infrastructure equipment in varying space types. Finally, it applies an improved model to generate the most recent (and more relevant) estimates of demand and savings potentials associated with nationwide efficiency improvements using recent data on the installed base of IT devices and efficiency measures in U.S. data centers.