The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has teamed up with the Green Grid to encourage energy efficiency in small computer rooms.

The organizations signed a memorandum of understanding to promote the greening of computer facilities and share best practices for replication with government agencies and industry.

As part of the partnership, existing EPA facilites will be evaluated for energy efficiency opportunities before the establishment of standardized processes and performance measures.

"Throughout the U.S., computer centers are becoming the fastest growing users of energy. As this sector experiences tremendous growth, EPA and The Green Grid see tremendous opportunity," said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. "By investing in energy efficiency in our own computer centers, we are proving that doing what's good for the environment is also good for the bottom line."

The move was announced the same week that a Cassatt survey revealed that data centers stand to gain an enormous amount of energy savings if server power management was utilized. More than 25 percent of respondents to the survey indicated that 60 percent of development and test servers or more sit idle during off-peak hours.