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The report went even further, suggesting that if data centers streamlined their practices and bought into energy-efficient IT already on the market today, it could lead to a 45-percent reduction in electricity usage by 2011.

Some say those numbers are too aggressive. "You really have to go out to some bleeding-edge technology to get those," Monroe said. But that uncertainty doesn't mean Monroe and other industry members aren't working on the problem.

Data-center-related startups such as FastScale Technology are delivering a new generation of software virtualization, which allows businesses to consolidate applications and workloads onto a fewer number of servers. The Sunnyvale, Calif.,-based company snagged its first round of venture funding in March, raising $6.5 million from the likes of ATA Ventures and Leapfrog Ventures.

The virtualization space also witnessed a much-to-do public offering by VMware in August. The Palo Alto, Calif.,-based company dazzled with one of the most successful IPOs of the year when investors sent shares up almost 76 percent.

Troubling Data

But for all the positive talk, many challenges still lie ahead. Among them is a lack of standards when it comes to measuring energy efficiency across the breadth of different vendors' products.

"If you were to walk into a random data center today and ask how efficient their facility was, odds are they would look at you a little funny trying to understand what you meant about efficiency," said John Pflueger, a technology strategist for Dell.

Pflueger and Monroe are members of The Green Grid, an industry group focusing on efficiency in data centers and computing. In August, the group said it is working to come up with ways to measure and reduce data centers' energy use.

But self-policing isn't an industry strong point, which is why the U.S. government is starting to consider developing Energy Star specifications for data-center equipment, such as servers, storage and network equipment.

"Manufacturers make claims about efficiency all the time," said Andrew Fanara, Energy Star program-development team leader for the EPA. But, if the claims aren't standardized, it's not a fair and honest comparison, he said.

If the government decides to offer a label that marks a product with an energy-efficient status, "it gives manufactures something else to compete on," Fanara said.

Either way, with data centers estimated to use up to 7 gigawatts of power at one time - the equivalent of the electricity generated by 15 power plants - companies working to solve the problem through new technologies have their work, and their market, cut out for them.