Funded by Google, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory investigated the energy impact of cloud computing. Their research indicates that moving all office workers in the United States to the cloud could reduce the energy used by information technology by up to 87%.
These energy savings are mainly driven by increased data center efficiency when using cloud services (email, calendars, and more). The cloud supports many products at a time, so it can more efficiently distribute resources among many users. That means we can do more with less energy.
Here is link to complete research findings. The Energy Efficiency Potential of Cloud-Based Software: A US Case Study.
