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Google Campus to Become Solar-powered
prostoalex writes "Reuters is reporting that Google is equipping its headquarters with a solar panel 'capable of generating 1.6 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 1,000 California homes.' This will make Google's Mountain View campus the largest solar-powered office complex in the United States."
I can only google stuff when the sun is shining in Mountain View?
"A Google executive said the company will rely on solar power to supply nearly a third of the electricity consumed by office workers at its roughly one-million-square-foot headquarters. This does not include power consumed by data centers that power many of Google's Web services worldwide, he said."
That's great, I am really proud of them for using an alternative energy source (especially in such a sunny area) but most of their energy usage is those data centers and servers, not their employees. They purposefully did not give a % of total energy saved because it probably would have been on the order of 0.1-5%, which would have revealed the ridiculous amount of energy they actually use.
I wonder how easy the transition will be for them to leave Linux behind in favor of a sun powered setup.
Oh yes. I went there.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Yeah but wait til Google becomes too powerful, the only option we'll have to shut the computers down will be to black out the sky :-/
I think I heard a story about it once...
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
They'll all show up at your door one day and go, "Wern't you the guy who dropped incredible internet science at slashdot? Our one single panel broke, and we're out a vast amount of money. Apparently, you're the man who will lead us into the next generation of solar powered offices."
"Old man yells at systemd"
Two words: Duct Tape.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
The article didnt say anything about its physical size. I wonder how much space they would have to consume to supply that much power.
The google campus doesnt have that many buildings, I have this weird image in my mind of all their buildings completely covered by solar panels.
Call me when they hit 1.21 gigawatts!
OK, to be serious, this is a wonderful leap. Granted, it took a company as flush with cash and as well organized as Google to make the switch, but even if they're much better suited to do so, they can at least be an example to strive for.
I don't think there's enough space in all of California that could be covered in the solar panels needed to power their data centers. Maybe if they bought New Mexico and turned it into one big panel array though.
The unexamined life is not worth living
you know they'll have to have one....
Ballmer unleashed....yes, a campus run on fear
Maybe if they bought New Mexico and turned it into one big panel array though.
So, they'd be replacing New Mexico with something useful? And the catch is?
Well, I guess that's one way to keep people from working late...
What about:
3 0
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/14/13232
and
http://news.com.com/2300-1030_3-6089390-5.html
Seems like there is a lot of hydroelectric power in Oregon.
"This Search Powered By The Sun" -Now with 1/3 Less Evil?
Think there's any chance Google would start installing solar panels on their data centers? This would be a HUGE gesture of enviro-friendly computing, even if it did cost them a bundle. It would certainly get other data centers and large power consumers (like yahoo and microsoft) to consider following suit. Based on estimates posted at Wikipedia, they consume 20MW of power for their 450,000+ servers (which actually seems really low - only 50W per server?).
... let's see, 16 wind turbines vs. 150,000 solar panels ...
Assuming it's more like 80MW of power they consume (equivalent to ~60K homes), I wonder if there'd even be enough high quality solar panels to offset a majority of this power consumption? I guess it makes more sense for them to start building wind farms near their out-of-the-way GooglePlexes. Some 5MW wind turbines are being tested today - hmmm
BTW: here's a link to a more detailed article on the subject: SF Gate - Google sets sight on solar
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
pretty powerful nuclear furnace.
I think the boys from They Might Be Giants summed it up best.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Yo ho, it's hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on Earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives
We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun, without a doubt
There'd be no you and me
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot
It is so hot that everything on it is a
gas: iron, copper, aluminum, and many others.
The sun is large
If the sun were hollow, a million
Earths could fit inside. And yet, the
sun is only a middle-sized star.
The sun is far away
About 93 million miles away, and that's why it
looks so small.
And even when it's out of sight
The sun shines night and day
The sun gives heat
The sun gives light
The sunlight that we see
The sunlight comes from our own sun's
Atomic energy
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge
atom-smashing machine. The heat and light of
the sun come from the nuclear reactions of
hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and helium.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
I wonder what the energy payback period is expected to be? I've heard up to thirty years for solar panels, which has always put me off because I would guess in 5-10 years there will be improvements in the amount of energy a panel can produce.
I had JUST read this on Google's blog, and when I clicked back to Slashdot, boom: deja vu on the top of the front page (and not from a dupe! :P).
:)
This is obviously a sign that you should submit it, and it'll make the front page tomorrow!
According to the EI Solutions website, it will only take 7.5 years to pay off the cost of the system.
I wonder how much this thing will cost to deploy, and if it will be able to pay for itself in energy savings after a while. I'm no expert on solar power at all, but some basic math seems to show that a 1.6 Megawatt system with 8 hours of sunlight per day would save somewhere around $900 USD per day in energy costs (Assuming 7 cents per KWh... I'm really not sure what the rates are out in Cali.) Seems like it would likely take quite a while to pay itself off at that rate...
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
Use of solar panels goes way back. I still can't believe Ronald Reagan took down those panels that Carter installed on the White House as well as axing the solar research program - weakass politics.. :(
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Did we cross the threshold of solar panel arrays giving off more power before the MTBF than it takes to create them? If not then this is just showing off, or maybe more simply some exeutive being missguided. Its just google being wastfull.
It happens when your rich, I suppose.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Two words: Duct Tape.
Would that be to fix it or to shut up the person who revealed the problem?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Does that include hiring someone to scrape off the bird shit from the cells?
The windfarms will take care of the birds. Crisis averted!
Remember: There are only two tools in life. WD-40, for when something doesn't move, and should, and Duct Tape, for when something is moving and it shouldn't.
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
So does the universe explode if you spray duct tape with WD-40?
OK. One square meter of solar panel is typically good for 130 watts at peak, but only about 655 watt hours per day, or 27 watts averaged over 24 hours. In other words, the average power is about 20% of the peak. So, to get 1.6 megawatts average power, you need about 60,000 square meters of panel, or an area 245 meters square. This is about two football fields of area, or three Wal-Mart Supercenter roofs.
A typical price for a good solar panel today is about $1000 for 160 watts peak. So to get 1.6 * 5 = 8 megawatts peak power, you need 50,000 of those panels, or about $50 million worth of panels. Batteries, inverters, and installation extra. (I suspect that Google is talking about 1.6MW of peak capacity, but that's a phony number to compare to other energy sources that can run 24 hours a day.)
There are already data centers that draw 30 megawatts continuous. That would take about a billion dollars worth of solar panels to power.
And by power plant standards, 30MW is dinky. Commercial power plants today run around a gigawatt.
Lets conduct an experiment and investigate what will happen if duct tape is sprayed with WD-40.
But, before we use any power tools, let's take a moment to talk about shop safety. Be sure to read, understand, and follow all the safety rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools properly will greatly reduce the risk of personal injury. And remember this: there is no more important safety rule than to wear these -- safety glasses and a funny hat.
I have with me a brand new roll of duct tape, and a fresh can of WD-40. Next to me is my trusty lab assistant, Timmy, who will be assiting in this experiment.
I am now going to rip a piece of duct tape approximately six inches long off of the roll and have Timmy hold it.
(I rip tape and hand it to Timmy)
Ok, Timmy, hold the tape tight, I am going to commence spraying the tape.
(I spray the tape)
Ok, Timmy... continue to hold it as we observe what happens.
(wait 5 seconds)
Timmy has told me it is starting to shake and do funny things...
OMG! A black hole has opened where the tape was. Timmy, hold on to it... this is the crucial moment...
Uh, oh! I think we are going to need another Timmy! It looks like Timmy was consumed by the black hole.
Luckily, I was prepaired for this. I will now throw into the black hole a few New Kids on the Block tapes and a copy of the movie Hobgobblins. This should cause the blackhole to enter "terminal suckage phase" and end its existance.
(I throw in the NKotB tapes and the copy of Hobgobblins. The black hole immediately ceases to be)
Well, it looks like yet another experiment has occured.
Tune in next week when I will show everyone how to build a perpetual energy generator using a cat and a slice of buttered toast.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
It's bird shit, who cares?
Wouldn't enough of it end up reducing the effectiveness of the panels?
Well, there's the datacenter they are building in The Dalles, OR. It's next to a defunct aluminum plant and will be powered by the nearby hydroelectric dam. It's awefully hard on the salmon but it's mostly renewable and fairly clean. The many cooling towers are already easily visible from the freeway.
My guess is the picked the location for the nearby/cheap power, low labor costs, cheap land, and relatively low corporate taxes in Oregon. Plus there's great windsurfing just 20 miles down the river.. and it's a pretty place.
I take it you've never seen this page?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Why don't they just hire the russians to build them a big floating nuclear plant?
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
Nike doesn't often get good press, but they recently build a windfarm in Lakdaal, Belgium, where they have their main European distribution center. The windfarm provides 100% of the power needs of the facility, in addition to the power needs of some 8000 households.
I'm sure google will share/sell what they don't use.
A major problem cited with developing nations is lack of infrastructure - a large part of which is power. By validating and making use of such technology common, it would be far easier to set up shop outside the US.
I don't want to read
With a bit of luck, small dust-devils will clean off the panels and it will end up running years longer than it was designed for....
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
Yeah yeah, but they only did it because they predicted Google would do it! To look better than Google! See, Microsoft, is evil...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Payback depends on how you measure it.
0 25&ch=biztech; they provided the initial seed funding, according to a release on Nanosolar's web site: http://www.nanosolar.com/pr5-6.htm (see second release at this page).
If you measure it as "payback of the purchase price", it could be as little as 2.5 years, depending on the specific technology.
If you measure it as ERoEI, it's generally acknowledged by everyone except die-hard solar power advocates that the ratio of Energy Returned over Energy Input for solar is less than 1, unless you use very very recent strained Silicon-based technology, which barely hit break-even earlier this year.
If you use thin film technology the purchase price payback grows to 4 years, and the Payback ERoEI drops to about 0.8.
There's also the little problem of there being a shortage of polycrystaline Silicon, from which solar cells are made. This shortage is expected to last through at least 2008, since it takes about 3 years to build a manufacturing plant for it, and that's what would have to happen to reduce the cost overhead.
So for right now, any decision to switch to solar by Google is going to be an economic one, rather than an environmental one.
This makes sense, since Larry Page and Sergey Brin are invested in a Solar power startup, Nanosolar http://www.techreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17
Since Nanosolar is a thin-film photovoltaic shop, we are looking at a longer economic payback time; their output capacity after their plant is built will be 430MW of cells per year, so this will eaither be the first run cells, or it will be about a day and a half of cell output at their full production capacity.
FWIW, the 1.6MW capacity is going to put them at ~1/500th of the total US Solar capacity, which as of this year is at 927MW, for just this one installation. Comparatively, total US solar capacity is only 85% of the output of one of the two reactors at Diablo Canyon (1087MW each), while total US wind power capacity is 10,000MW and growing by 3,000MW in 2006 alone, according th AWEA (the American Wind Energy Association).
-- Terry
So 1 home needs 1.6kW of electricity?
Don't people in California have airconditioning?
The smallest contract my electricity company (EDF) will sell is 3kW, and nobody uses that 'cos your main circuit breaker would blow if you turned on a couple of electric heaters and a microwave.
As far as I can remember I've got an 18kW contract, so this thing would be able to power around 100 people like me.
(Personaly I'll stick with my nice PWR thankyou).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Now your average square yard (or square meter, close enuf) solar panel can, if at right angles to the Sun, on a clear day, can put out maybe 160 watts.
So they could be planning on having 1,600,000 / 160, or ten thousand solar panels.
That's a pretty big number.
Now let's see if this is cost effective in any way:
Let's say they can get a quantity discount and can bargain the price down to, say, $1,000 each. (Current prices, with installation, are somewhere around $4,500, so we're being generous).
And let's also assume all the ancillary folderol of DC to AC converters costs only another 20% (probably closer to 40% in real life).
So we're talking about $1,200 per panel, $120,000,000 for the whole shebang. Chump change for Google.
Actually, literally "chump Change".
Becuz those panels, over a 24-hour average, although they can peak out at 160 watts each, if you take into account unavoidable things like "night" and "clouds", the average power is closer to 15 to 30 watts.
Now scientists tell us there are about 8760 hours in a year. Thirty watts for a year is about 263,000 watt-hours, or lets round it up to 300 kilowatt-hours. Multiply it by the number of panels, and that's an impressive 3,000,000 kilowatt hours. At a rate of 10 cents each, they can save $300,000 a year. If we are extremely optimistic, and assume the panels will last 15 years, they will save $4,500,000 over their lifetime.
"Good for the environment", at a first glance. "Gives you warm and fuzzy feelings", for sure.
Of course, if you do the math, $120 million spent, a return of $4.5 mil, that's not so good if you're an accountant.
It's actually worse than that, as if you keep the $120 million in the bank, it will garner at least $54 million at just 3% interest, risk free, leaving $174 million in the bank. So Google will lose about $170 million on this project.
But if you are a STOCKHOLDER in the CORPORATION, you should be apalled. One Hundred Seventty Million Dollars down the drain. Your Money.
Even if energy prices QUADRUPLED over the next 15 years, they will still lose over $120 million. Yipes.
If I owned any Google stock, I'd be pissed.
I was gonna say just that, that energy storage is the bigger issue than production, especially with wind and solar power, that are intermittent, though solar delivers energy while the people are at work, and when it gets dark, people go home, but still, you need keep the buidlings lit in the dark, or do you? Anyway, I think their solar panels will just be grid-tied, and not much local storage will be implemented, besides some backup power supplies and, guess what, generators that burn gas. And by the way I don't think supercapacitors can store that much energy, their advantage is burst load, they deliver fast, but limited capacity, and using it in say, a car, I'm guessing you'd probably get a less than 10 mile range with the top of the line supercapacitors, as opposed to 150 miles with heavy lead acid batteries that make the car sink through the asphalt, and 300 miles with conventional hydrocarbon storage that keeps the car light.
This is a HIGH TECH company we're talking about. Who's going to get out of their aeron chairs and leave their grape-feeding brazillian fan-women behind to go on the roof and scrape bird shit?
This is what the not-operator is for.
No bird shit?
-"Bird Shit"
simple as that.
No bird shit or tree sap?
-"Bird Shit"|"Tree Sap"
See how easy it is?
What, exactly, do you think those server farms do all day?
I think a "..duh.." is in order here.
I applaud Google for taking these steps, but reading between the lines here's another way to look at this:
From the article: The solar array will be "... capable of generating 1.6 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 1,000 California homes" however, "the company will rely on solar power to supply nearly a third of the electricity consumed by office workers at its roughly one-million-square-foot headquarters" (emphasis added).
The way I read that, the Google campus uses over 4.8 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power over 3,000 California homes, just for the offices, excluding the server farms and data centres.
Alternate energy sources are great and I'm all for them, but the only long term solution is to be smarter about energy use and use less of it. For example, I've recently replaced my home PC with one using a Pentium M motherboard and cut my PC power consumption in half. Similarly, turning off devices instead of putting them on standby, and taking other measures such as replacing lightbulbs with low-energy bulbs all helps reduce my personal energy consumption.
In a business context, how about turning off office lights at night or going for motion sensor solutions so you aren't lighting empty space? Encouraging employees to turn off workstations overnight, etc. I've no idea if Google does something along these lines already, this isn't an attack on them.
My 2 cents.
Let's try this with some more accurate numbers.
180 Watt Solar Panels ($880 each)
That's 8,888 180 Watt panels to get to 1.6MW peak.
Total cost for the panels: $7,821,440. Now, let's say for spending that much money google is able to negotiate a modest 5% discount to bring the cost per panel with discount down to: $7,430,368.
I'm going to stick with the above assumption that wiring and converters at this level will come in around 20% of the cost. Which is $1,486,073.
Now let's assume they can get the whole thing installed at a price of $500 per panel on average. That's $4,444,400.
There, my total cost for installation is now: $13,360,441.
It's hard to estimate how many watts per day one of the 180 watt panels will produce because it depends a lot on local weather patterns and how they're positioned. But over a 24hour/365 day period I'm going to go ahead and assume an average hourly production ballpark figure of 25 watts per panel. So that's 25 watts x 8,888 panels: 222.2KW hours. Multiply it by 8,760 hours in a year: 1,946,472 KW hours/year.
The best I could find for electric rates is Sacramento at $0.111/kwh.
At that rate, google will save $216,058/year.
Solar panels last much longer than 15 years. Here's a company that claims a lifespan of 30+ years and they have a 25 year warranty. Here's a guy who talks about a 21 year old panel still producing at near it's peak rating.
From personal experience I can say many older panels lose some efficiency and after 12-15 years their output drops to ~80% of the their original peak output. But let's assume the gradual loss of output will coincide with a gradual increase in the grid power price, offsetting each other.
So let's say a 30 year life, $216,058/year comes to $6,481,740. Subtract that from the installation costs and you get: $-6,878,701. Not nearly the $120M loss you estimate.
Now, if prices did, in fact, quadruple (which over a 30 year period isn't only unheard of, but likely) the numbers get ever closer to a net of zero. Not to mention the publicity google gains from this and the mitigation of risk by not leaving themselves susceptable to rising energy prices. And who knows, the panels may last 40 years.
Either way, it's not the giant boondoggle you make it out to be.
Well that does make sense. Because I've always said that the Matrix would be better off using animals as batteries because a group of renegade cows would do nothing in the Matrix.
Can I bum a sig?