What is Digg?47 Comments
- techfuture33, on 06/17/2009, -1/+17Its only 4.5 megawatts out of 80! But hey, at least they are trying
- WordsnCollision, on 06/17/2009, -4/+16Quick, into my solar panel disguise. Wonder how much they pay?
- Rikkochet, on 06/17/2009, -2/+14FTA: "Even though solar will power only a fraction of the data center, it may still save the company 50% of its energy bill because of the unique way the company has come up with using on-site thermal storage to time-shift when it is charged for the use of electricity. There's no room for details here, but check out the article for how it's going to be done."
Why, pray tell, is there no room for details? Do you have somewhere else to be that you can't do five ***** minutes of research beyond copying and pasting from another source? - krellor, on 06/17/2009, -0/+8Not saying you are right or wrong, but try reading their source first.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/0 ...
Time-Shifted Cooling
But Phoenix ONE plan capitalizes on another wrinkle in power pricing: the differential between the daytime and overnight rates. The solar plant will be combined with an on-site thermal storage facility to create a time-shifted energy efficiency system.
i/o Data Centers will run its chillers at night when power is cheap, and then tap the thermal storage “battery” to provide much of the facility’s cooling during the day, reducing its power usage when electricity is most expensive. The solar power panels will further rlower Phoenix ONE’s reliance on utility power during peak hours.
“If we can generate 3 megawatts during the day, combined with our thermal storage, we can shave our power costs by about 50 percent,” said George Slessman, the CEO of i/o Data Centers. “Anything I can do to move my power consumption to off-peak hours is going to save a lot of money. Solar is the renewable approach that works best during peak daytime power pricing.” - gtrob, on 06/17/2009, -0/+5Saving 50% of its energy BILL is not the same as converting 50% of its energy to renewable sources. It just means that they are taking fossil energy from the grid when it's cheaper. No matter how you cut it, 4.5 out of 80 megawatts are coming from solar.
But still, it's a good start. - darkcthulhu, on 06/17/2009, -1/+6Solar panels grow food?
- ChileanGoD, on 06/17/2009, -1/+6FTA:
"Think that solar power can't power data centers?".....
...."The 4.5 megawatts will only power a fraction of the entire data center, which will consume a massive 80 megawatts."
Well, you answered your own question. NO! They can't. - isunktheship, on 06/17/2009, -2/+61.21 GIGAWATTS!
- antoniuk, on 06/17/2009, -0/+4You just made that up didn't you? They are doing just that (second statement) to offset the cost of peak power. Tehre is only so much you can level out in a traditional data center without rebuilding the infrastructure to be energy efficiant.
Google Super NAP for next gen data centers - joh777nny, on 06/17/2009, -1/+4Aw man you beat me to it.
- rcflyr, on 06/18/2009, -0/+3We use ice storage to cool our complex. At night when the electricity is cheap, we make the ice. During peak hours water is pumped through the ice storage and used to cool the buildings.
- creativeslice, on 06/17/2009, -0/+3No room for this:
"i/o Data Centers will run its chillers at night when power is cheap, and then tap the thermal storage “battery” to provide much of the facility’s cooling during the day, reducing its power usage when electricity is most expensive. The solar power panels will further rlower Phoenix ONE’s reliance on utility power during peak hours."
Really? - Ajajadude, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2Didn't they also say that odds are, if you're running a data center, it wouldn't require nearly that much energy?
- failtrain, on 06/18/2009, -1/+3We can use corn cobs to host websites?
- Digger1123, on 06/17/2009, -1/+3It may save money in energy bills, but it will not pay off the cost of the solar panels for years.
- Barackalypse, on 06/17/2009, -1/+3No, I don't think solar power can power data centers (in a cost effective manner at this point in time), and this article doesn't change my opinion given only 4.5 out of 80 megawatts the place uses is coming from the solar panels. Although, solar thermal does present one possible solution to the problem of "solar power only works when the sun is out, which usually leaves 12 hours a day where you need power storage".
- failtrain, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2I was going to post facepalm ascii, but you failed so bad it wasn't worth my effort looking for it.
- Nacon, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2"If that was true wouldn't they get it together, install the other 4.5 mega watts and save 100%? "
Im sure if they could, they would build 4.5MW more. Only 1 problem, you need the space to put the damn pannels.
You can put alot of servers in a small area, and if you do you need alot of cooling, all of that takes alot of power. More power than any pv panel can produce in that same small area.
My point is that they probably allready used all available surface area to put pv panels, but the power it produces its not even close to what they need.
Also You can save alot of money on your electricity bill by eliminating peak usage. In my college they noticed an energy peak around 11am causing a big energy bill.
Turned out it was when the college kitchen turned on all their overs/cookers at once. They made the cooks turn on their ovens one at a time, starting at 9:30 am.
At the end of the day they actually used more energy, since the overs were on longer, but they didnt have that expensive peak anymore.
Saying that taking away 4.5MW out of a total of 80MW saves 50% may seem like a big lie, but big power users dont pay a flat see per kwh.
The total of their cooling strategy and use of solar power probably does save em that much. - rcflyr, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2They don't blow air over the ice, they pump water through heat exchangers in the ice storage, and use the cold water (in other heat exchangers) to cool the air in the buildings. It takes a lot of ice.
- 1SockChuck, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2Nacon is correct. They've maxed out their roof space. The 4.5 megawatt installation will take up at least 300,000 square feet of space on the roof of a 500,000 square foot building. That's the reason solar doesn't work on most data centers ... there's a serious disconnect between the watts-per-square-foot the solar array can genetrate and the watts-per-square-foot the data center can consume.
- JHW539, on 06/18/2009, -0/+2That is what they are doing at this site. The ice is used to generate cold water, and you mix it with return to get what ever temperature your require.
- 1SockChuck, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1From the story at Data Center Knowledge (which did the oprimary reproting, Greener Computing is a rewrite):
"The solar power is also expensive, costing about 18 cents per kilowatt hour to generate in a market where grid power is 7 cents."
Google has looked at the costs of PV solar for its data centers, and it has estimated costs as high as 25 to 30 cents per kWh. That's why it's focusing on thermal solar, which can generate at "utility scale":
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/0 ...
- 1SockChuck, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1You'd be running the chillers ayway to cool the data center. Making the ice allows you to use the chillers during hours when power is cheaper, and then get more bang for the buck by using the ice during the day.
- Nacon, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1They do pretty much the same.
Like Rikkochet said, no idea why they dont have room for details in the article, but he link points to where they do have room for details.
The article he links to should have made it to digg (http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/0 ... not his one... - JHW539, on 06/19/2009, -0/+1The numbers do not work out unless you have a large diurnal swing. If I cool the datacenter directly, I am making 50-55F water. To charge an ice tank, I have to make 20-25F gylcol. A centrifugal chillers efficiency drops about 1.5% for each degree increase in the lift (delta between the chilled water supply temp and the condenser temp), so your chiller will lose 10-37% efficiency in the ice regime; the 10% loss assumes you can get a 23F degree lower condenser temperature at night, which is not common in most climates.
Ice storage is not the best option for efficiency, it's benefit is where you have massive deltas in the cost of off versus on peak power and very limited space. - ketedford, on 06/18/2009, -0/+11.21 gigawatts?
- Webwonk, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1The details are here at Data Center Knowledge. It's actually a pretty cool system:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/0 ... - JHW539, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1I have questions about the efficiency of the ice storage at night. Making ice is expensive - the larger the temperature delta your chiller is working through the worse it's efficiency (higher kW/ton). It is an excellent way to save money, but at the end of the year you use more kWh.
- maeon3, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1I wonder if they could have saved more by putting the money spent on solar panels to more batteries so they can just carry over electricity from night time to day time.
- danj484, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1You still can, you just need way more cells.
- atum2000, on 06/18/2009, -0/+1i toured their facility in scottsdale. these guys know their *****
- juankovo, on 06/17/2009, -1/+1There are building cooling systems that essentially work by making ice during the night when electricity is cheap, and then blowing air over the cold ice and into the building's ventilation system during the day.
- DJProxy, on 06/17/2009, -1/+1mmmmmmmmmmmmm...solar panels
- gtrob, on 06/17/2009, -3/+3Actually, no, that's completely wrong, solar converts a few percent of the energy on a given area into usable energy, and the energy from food for that same area would be waaaaaaaay less.
- inactive, on 06/17/2009, -1/+1They need to employ thermal energy storage tanks also to do some load leveling of utilities to get the most out of those solar panels.
- andrewlotta, on 06/17/2009, -2/+2"...the company has come up with using on-site thermal storage to time-shift when it is charged for the use of electricity."
They are going to go back in time to avoid bills?
Seems counter-productive, no?... - Hutchentoot, on 06/17/2009, -1/+1I think this is good, but I feel the next breakthrough in Solar Panels that harness its true processing powers will be the breakthrough. Lots of the potential is there.. it is only time.
- inactive, on 06/17/2009, -3/+2Will the 'employment' of these 5000 solar panels count toward Obama's 'created jobs' number?
- vtbarrera, on 06/17/2009, -2/+1cool story bro
- GaltShrugged, on 06/17/2009, -2/+1Purple monkey dishwasher.
- antoniuk, on 06/17/2009, -2/+1How do you control humidity that way? What of metal corrosion, mechanical breakdown, etc. No that is very impractible for a data center
how long do you think ice would last in 100+ degree weather? - inactive, on 06/17/2009, -2/+1What a crock.
- artwhite, on 06/17/2009, -7/+4Sunlight is more efficient for growing food than a solar panel will ever be
- cubicledrone, on 06/17/2009, -4/+1The headline should be "America Builds Something. Management Controversy Erupts. Layoffs Imminent."
- DirtPile, on 06/17/2009, -5/+1OVER 5,000!
- inactive, on 06/17/2009, -8/+4"up to 4.5 megawatts of electricity to help power its giant data center."
To "help" power the center. As techfuture points out, it's only 4.5 mwatts out of 80. And get this: "it may still save the company 50% of its energy bill "
Sure it will. If that was true wouldn't they get it together, install the other 4.5 mega watts and save 100%? Anyone would! Why don't they? Cause it's a lie.
- GaltShrugged, on 06/17/2009, -13/+2Early burying.
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