Companies in the City of London are facing a looming power crisis, as some report being unable to get enough power for in-house data centres.

Power is an increasing problem for data centre managers, both as a running cost and increasingly because of the overall power requirements of high-end data centres.

Chris Armes, director of Solaris revenue product engineering software at Sun Microsystems, warned of the problem during the launch of Solaris 10.

"Some banks in the City cannot physically get any more power in their data centres," he told vnunet.com. "That is how big a power problem we have looming."

Armes claimed that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California is giving a $600 rebate to firms that buy Sun's Niagara platform because it can save power.

Power shortages are also providing a boost to virtualisation take up, since the technology allows firms to reduce the amount of hardware within an organisation.

EDF Energy Networks, which supplies most of London and the South East with electricity, told vnunet.com that London is facing an increasing power burden.

"EDF is in regular contact with its major customers in the City to ensure that there are plans in place to meet demands for increased power caused by new advances in computer and data technology," the company said.

"While we frequently meet requests from customers for increases in power in challenging timescales, it is often not possible to guarantee that we can meet such requests instantly."