The cost of data centre power and cooling will rise 250 percent in five years, according to Lechner, who claimed data centres consume two percent of the world's energy and are responsible for about two percent of total global carbon emissions, the equivalent output of every aircraft in commission.

He said while power and cooling expense costs about $0.40 for for every $1 on IT equipment, it will rise to $0.70 within three years, and will equal the hardware spend by 2012.

Lechner blames the costs in part on a 30 percent compound annual growth rate in server sprawl, common across most data centres.

This consumption is heightened in the 80 percent of data centres, according to research firm IDC, which are hosting more data in power hungry servers in data centres buildings more than eight years old.

"The energy consumption of data centres is 15 times intensive than a typical office building, and in some cases it is up to 100 times as exhaustive. CEOs and CFOs are grappling with energy bills that are 10 to 15 times as expensive of what they expect," Lechner said.

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