IBM today revealed further details about its strategy to lower the energy use and environmental impact of its customers' datacentres with the launch of a new tool for measuring datacentre carbon emissions and plans for an energy efficient new cooling system.

The company - which earlier this month pledged to invest $1bn a year in doubling the capacity of its own datacentres while maintaining the same energy footprint - said that it was developing a raft of new technologies and approaches that would allow firms to cut datacentre power consumption by around 50 percent, allowing them to either reduce electricity bills or more easily expand their computing capacity.

As part of the new strategy the company today unveiled an extension to its Zodiac consultancy service, providing customers with a new toolset for measuring their datacentre's carbon footprint.

"The aim is to not only let customers see the staff and space savings that come from server consolidation, but also the energy and CO2 savings," explained Steve Bowden, green computing consultant at IBM's Systems and Technology Group. "It means firms also have the information they need to offset their emissions if they choose."

The new service will also be joined by a free online questionnaire-based tool designed to assess the energy efficiency of a firm's datacentre and a new energy efficiency incentive finder, which will be available globally later in the year and will provide datacentre managers with information on the government incentives available around more energy efficient equipment.

Steve Sams, vice president of global site and facilities services at IBM, said the aim of the new services and tools was to give IT chiefs greater insight into the energy their datacentres use. "This is about giving people a set of facts that allow them to think green," he said. "In 99 percent of cases when I go into the datacentre and ask how energy efficient they are I am met with blank looks."

Sams added that alongside the new services the company was also investing in a raft of new energy efficient infrastructure solutions, including new integrated racks systems that use a raised floor and integrated cabling to maximise cooling efficiency, water cooled server rack doors, new Tivoli management software capabilities that manage server configurations based on energy use, and a component-based datacentre design aimed at midmarket firms.

The company also confirmed plans for a new "cold battery" that is installed between the chiller and HVAC unit and works as a cold store, allowing firms to run their chilling unit at full capacity and then turn them off when the battery has been fully "charged".

Sams said that the "cold battery", which consists of a solution containing 30 materials that solidifies when it gets cold, allows firms to only run chiller units at their maximum efficiency and even turn them off during the day when electricity prices are highest. He added that the system would be available in the US from July and could reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent compared to conventional cooling systems.