Moving to a direct current infrastructure says Symanski, "gets rid of three conversion steps in the electrical system, and also reduces the load on the air conditioning by the reduced amount of heat being created.

What's that mean in terms of dollar savings? "We've found in most of our demonstrations that we get about a 15% reduction in the power used to run IT equipment. Plus the savings from needing less air conditioning, which are probably comparable, but harder to measure.

Since a DC infrastructure means DC UPSs, DC circuit breakers, DC interconnect cables, et etc., data centers are unlikely to convert existing AC set-ups, other than as testbeds, says Symanski. "This is for when you are expanding in your data center, like adding a new row of racks, or building a new data center."

There are many opportunities to reduce power consumption simply by replacing some of the components in existing power and cooling systems.