The U.S. green data center market is projected to increase from its current $3.8 billion value to $13.8 billion in 2015, according to a recent report from Environmental Leader insights. The significant rise represents a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent during the five-year period.

The average data center uses as much electricity as 40,000 homes each year, with many of them operating at only 4 percent of capacity. Across the globe, there are nearly 4.8 million operating servers that are not being used, which still cost $20 billion to run with $3.7 billion wasted in energy costs.

The growth of cloud computing is a primary reason for the the shift toward green data centers. As an increasing number of companies adopt cloud services to reduce their energy expenses and improve overall business operations, they have placed energy expenses on the providers. The surge in cloud use has resulted in more vendors realizing both the economic and environmental benefits of introducing greener, more efficient data centers.

With more green data centers, the cloud will become an even more eco-friendly and sustainable solution for companies. The government appears to be joining the trend as well, as the report found federal expenditures on efficient data centers will reach nearly $900 million in 2010, rising to more than $2 billion by 2015.ADNFCR-2553-ID-19928195-ADNFCR