Data Centers Prepare for a Renewable Future

miller60 writes "A small but growing number of data centers are generating renewable energy at their facility, despite challenges with cost and scalability. In a special report, Data Center Knowledge looks at data centers implementing on-site solar power, wind energy, geothermal cooling and recycling waste heat from their hot aisles. Even as some projects choose to go green, other data center operators insist that improved power efficiency offers a far better return and carbon impact than pursuing on-site renewables."

Comments

hrm.

[Anonymous Coward]

"other data center operators insist that improved power efficiency offers a far better return and carbon impact that pursuing on-site renewables."

These are not mutually exclusive.

Re:hrm.

[eln]

Exactly. Any data center engineers running into issues with the cost of power and cooling (ie, all of them) should be exploring both of these options. Whatever solutions we come up with, be they efficient machines or renewable on-site energy or both, are destined to become inadequate at some point as our computing needs inevitably expand to fill the available capacity. The more additive solutions we can pile on, the longer the time horizon before we end up in another crisis where we have to find yet another innovative solution.

id like to see

[nimbius]

exactly how much in the office, not the datacenter, we're failing to "go green." I know its off topic but aside from the lights-out datacenter not much has really been done for large datacenters like the one i work in, while the office seems like an energy hog with no end in sight

I do hear constantly however of minimum light levels that must be maintained in offices, and the temperature in a cube farm being forcibly maintained at 72 degrees. the vending machines run 24/7 when nobody is around, and the parking lot is constantly lit up like a runway.

Re:id like to see

[jridley]

I agree, it's pretty damned inefficient here. They build buildings with the cheapest construction techniques available, just basically a big metal semi-insulated crackerbox, then put 10,000 tons of A/C on the roof. There are 45,000 watts of fluorescent tubes just on this floor of our office building, and they're on for hours a day that are not necessary. I'd like to be able to turn my computer off, but every few days I need to access it remotely. I could do both if they'd deploy a little 50 watt wake-on-lan box, but nobody cares. I have asked about 10 times over the last 5 years for the "green team" to push for "put the monitors in power save mode after 30 minutes" to be the default on the standard desktop, but though they always say "that's a great idea" it never happens.

Imagine

[codepunk]

Imagine the fuel savings if every office worker that was able could telecommute instead of burning fuel to get to a job that could be done from home. Imagine the money saved on road maintenance and other things associated with the reduction in traffic. For at least the last 15 years I have commuted back and forth every day to perform a job I could have done without ever leaving my home.

Re:Imagine

[JumpDrive]

This has been going on for a long time. The current problem is that nobody thinks you work when you are at home. Here we have people who actually come in and put their head on their desk, but they are deemed good employees because they show up.

Basically it boils down to management. Usually it is deemed that you have to visually see the people to know they are working, otherwise you would have to know what they are working on to determine whether they are working effectively.

An Efficient Office

[MrSteve007]

I manage and operate one of the more efficient office spaces in the US (I was awarded a National EnergyStar award in 2008 for my work). We've implemented almost everything possible for our small server racks. We've gone from 8 machines to 3 via virtualization, and have a 10kW array and 40kw battery backup for our operation - which now results in zero down time. In doing just that, we've gone from 58 kWh used from the grid a day for our servers to zero (the PV array supports it). Also, instead of using dedicated A/C - we've re-engineered our ductwork to pull in ambient air from the office space, and redirect the hot exhaust to different locations. During the summer, it's dumped directly outside - and during the winter it's used to heat our entrances and used to cover the heating needs of the building at night.

In terms of energy use for the servers and A/C alone, we're saving about $4,000 a year - and that's just for a small server arrangement.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=labeled_buildings.showProfile&profile_id=1008052

Re:An Efficient Office

[MrSteve007]

While it seems like a shifty answer, it all depends on how you calculate return on investment . . .

Without any tricky accounting, the simple ROI of the PV array is about 12 years. If you calculate the ROI based on the PV and battery backup, factoring lack of downtime, in our case it was closer to an 18 month ROI. For us, each hour of downtime translates to roughly $5,000 of lost earnings. It doesn't take too many hours of backup power to pay off. Of course we could have gone with a gas generator for a much cheaper installation cost, but the tax benefits of a PV array for a corporation can be very attractive.

As for the virtualization, that was based more on the regular 5 year replacement cycle we have on our hardware. Instead of replacing 5 old servers with 5 new servers, it was much more simple and cost effective to build out one powerful machine and virtualize the existing machines.

The cost of the ductwork and fan was about $1,500 - however our A/C unit consumed roughly $1,000 a year to cool the space, so an 18 month ROI. Of course, it's all dependent on your climate, building layout, age of equipment and ease of installation. For us, it's worked out well. We've now achieved a 75% reduction over our baseline from 3 years ago in our grid energy needs, while increasing processing power, lighting levels, and maintaining a comfortable climate controlled office.

http://jbdg.com/results.html