Datacentre chief: Carbon reduction cost will not affect us

The costs of conforming to the Carbon Reduction Commitment should not significantly affect UK datacentre companies, a datacentre chief has said.

The scheme, now called the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, adds costs to businesses that consume large amounts of electricity, such as datacentres. Industry figures have spoken out against it; Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of hosting company Memset, has written on her blog that the CRC "threatens to impede growth and innovation in the datacentre industry".

However, Daniel Lowe, managing director of UKSolutions, which runs two datacentres, told ZDNet UK on Tuesday that the CRC should not have a major impact on his sector.

Lowe said the cost of CRC will add between five and 7.5 percent to the power cost of operating a UK datacentre.

"If you look at it, current electricity has a five percent VAT level [for high-consumption businesses, such as datacentres]. Talk about adding another five percent or 7.5 percent and you're not even at regular VAT level," he said.

"As much as I don't like paying more tax, the change actually starts to bring power and harmonise it with the cost of virtually anything else in the business and I don't think that saying it's got standard tax on it would drive a whole industry away," Lowe said.