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Intel Testing Solar Power For Data Centers

Posted by kdawson on from the something-green-in-the-desert dept.

miller60 writes "Intel has installed solar panels at a New Mexico facility to test the potential for using photovoltaic solar power in data centers. Solar has proven impractical in data centers thus far for reasons of cost (too high) and capacity (too low). Intel will test the 10-KW solar array with data center containers and as supplemental power for summer capacity challenges, and says the project is a first step toward solar data centers. The project is housed at the New Mexico site of Intel's recent research in air side economizers in data center cooling."

4 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Photovoltaics aren't yet up to breakeven... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... but solar thermal -> heat engine has, if the size is reasonably large.

    Wind turbines ditto if large enough and the site has good winds. (For house-sized they're only past cost breakeven if you can save a few grand by not running grid power to a new rural site.)

    Progress in photovoltaic design and energy storage systems may bring both solar and small wind past the competitive-with-grid crossover, perhaps in the next few years. Rises in grid power costs could do it, too.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  2. Solar is starting to become promising by ducomputergeek · · Score: 5, Informative

    We're not a datacenter, just a development company. We had money left over last year that was either going to be taxed and some tax credits expired in december. So we needed to be reinvested into the business some how. We put in solar panels on the office roof that meets about 60 - 70% of our power needs. This has lowered our power bills by over half. That's freed up enough cash flow to pay for another developer. We viewed the investment as a sunk cost that freed up enough to hire an additional Jr. programmer that we were really needing.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  3. Re:I'd think solar HVAC would come before PV. by MozeeToby · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except that the summary specifically says that the new research is being done at the same place they recently tested thier non-AC cooling solutions, so this particular datacenter needs almost no cooling.

  4. Re:Core 2 Duo Thermal is the answer by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Informative

    You ever stood behind a rack of servers? Those things put out a lot of heat. If we can tap geothermal energy from deep underground, we should be able to grab it from a server room and convert it to energy.

    Why 'should' we be able to? You think the laws of physics work like they do in Star Trek where all you have to is wish hard enough?
     
    Not to mention that what we are grabbing from deep underground is steam to drive turbines, not heat directly.