IT departments don’t get the electric bills, and for many businesses, that’s part of the disconnect that’s still hampering the adoption of power-saving technology and processes.

eWeek has an article on how web hosting provider Rackspace has taken data center greening to heart. In it, writer Jeffrey Burt mentions a flooring company, Mohawk Industries, that has linked the facilities and IT departments in a way that will add to its established cost- and energy-saving programs.

In addition, Mohawk is addressing what some analysts and vendors say is a key hurdle to greater energy efficiency in data centers—bridging the gap between the IT folks who order and run the equipment and the facilities employees in charge of powering and cooling the data centers.

"Like most companies, the power and utility charges don't hit an IS cost center, so we don't see the charges," Jensen said. "However, we have recently base-lined both our data centers in the watts and amperage loads they are using at peak/average times. We can then compare this after our changes and monitor as new servers are added."

It’s a good idea to ease into it though. If the IT folks were to just see the bills, they’d likely just keel over taking a lot of precious equipment along for the spill.