Empirical Analysis of Energy Consumption Patterns in Nigerian Data Centres and Green IT Optimisation Opportunities

Data centres in Nigeria are rapidly growing in number and scale as cloud adoption accelerates, yet their energy consumption and carbon footprint are rarely measured or optimised, creating both economic waste and environmental impact in a country with severe grid power constraints. This study empirically analyses energy consumption patterns in Nigerian data centres and identifies green IT optimisation opportunities. With the cooperation of five commercial and institutional data centre operators in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, power usage effectiveness (PUE), cooling efficiency, server utilisation rates, and power source composition (grid, diesel generators, renewable) were measured and logged over 90 days using smart energy monitoring equipment. Average PUE across the five facilities was 2.41, significantly worse than the international industry benchmark of 1.58. Server average CPU utilisation was 17 percent, indicating widespread underutilisation. Diesel generator dependency averaged 62 percent of total power hours during the measurement period. Cooling systems accounted for 54 percent of total facility energy consumption in Lagos facilities. Virtualisation consolidation analysis projected a 31 percent reduction in server energy consumption achievable through VM consolidation alone. Solar PV supplementation feasibility was evaluated and found economically positive at current diesel costs for all five facilities. The study provides the first empirical energy consumption analysis of Nigerian data centres and proposes a Nigerian Data Centre Green IT Roadmap.

Keywords: data centre energy, power usage effectiveness, green IT, Nigeria, cloud computing sustainability