Brazilian government clamps down on federal data centers over energy usage, amid drought

The Brazilian government is clamping down on excessive energy use amid a drought across the country. As part of this, the government is introducing measures such as a mandate to federal data centres to moderate power use. According to a source speaking to Reuters, these measures are being made in an effort to reduce the country’s overall electrical load by 10%, and reduce demands on the system by 7,000 megawatts.

This mandate was included in President Bolsonaro’s decree, which outlined: “The bodies and entities shall seek to reduce electricity consumption in the months of September 2021 to April 2022 in a percentage of ten to twenty percent in relation to the average consumption of the same month in the years 2018 and 2019.”

As part of the mandate, data centers, specifically, should keep rooms “cooled only to the limit of what is technically necessary.” Moreover, as reported by DCD, air conditioning equipment should be “dimensioned according to the size of the environment,” and lighting, where, not used should remain switched off. Meanwhile, electronic equipment, including computers, monitors, printers, should be “set to consume the least amount of electricity possible when not in use after a few minutes.”

The drought, which is the worst in almost a century, is also having a huge impact on the country’s hydroelectricity capacity, which accounts for 65% of the country’s total energy source.