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More Data Centers Using On-Site Solar Power

Posted by timothy on from the be-my-little-sunshine dept.

1sockchuck writes "Solar power hasn't been widely used in data centers because it takes a very large installation of photovoltaic solar panels to generate the levels of energy required by these facilities. But the month of April has seen the debut of four new data centers featuring on-site solar arrays."

15 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Makes sense to me by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I don't think it would be feasible to run a data center only on solar, it could help with a big thing: cooling. The hotter it is outside, the harder those A/Cs have to work and the more energy they use. Well, conveniently the hotter it is outside the more direct sun the solar panels tend to get so the more power they generate. Kinda of an automatic offset. When the power demand is the most, the panels give you the most.

    You'd still need line power to run the data center, particularly at night, but you could help offset your costs in a big way.

    1. Re:Makes sense to me by TheLink · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's actually starting to make more sense.

      Previously it had to be subsidized and was more of a way for offsetting your costs to taxpayers, than to the Sun ;).

      But from what I see the prices are dropping: http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=5

      Currently average retail electricity costs are about USD0.09 per kWh (grabbed from DOE). So: ( 1.60 per watt ) / ( 0.09 per kWh) = 2 years.

      The sun doesn't shine brightly all the time and there are installation costs etc, so the payback time is about a multiple of that say 8-10 years?

      --
    2. Re:Makes sense to me by Stellian · · Score: 2

      The sun doesn't shine brightly all the time and there are installation costs etc, so the payback time is about a multiple of that say 8-10 years?

      I assume they are rated at direct incident light of 1000W/m^2; they have about 13% efficiency, and cost about 200$/m^2.
      In United States you have quite a bit of sun, about 5KW/day/m^2. So you get 0.65KWh per day, on average, for every square meter of installation. You earn about 21$/year/m^2.

      It takes 10 years pay it back ignoring the present money value. At more economically realistic 5% interest rate, the payback time is about 20 years, on par with the panel's life time. So much for "free energy". Without ignoring the setup costs and indirect costs from using the power company to regulate your supply when the sun does not shine, the payback time is right about never.

      Strictly for the US south-west, solar is borderline profitable when done at the utility level, because they have huge economies of scale. For most of Europe, Canada, Rusia etc. it's a non-starter.

  2. Not yet fully powered by c0lo · · Score: 3, Insightful
    TFA cites 4 examples, none of which reached the level of self-sufficiency. So, while a step in the good direction, the data centers haven't yet reached "to generate the levels of energy required by these facilities" (as TFS suggest).

    Anyway, one can only hope the trend will continue, even if only for two very selfish reasons:
    a. the more mainstream the PV are, the lower the price on all the market (10 years to ROI for a decent PV home installation is still too expensive to my taste).
    b. the more pressure on energy consumption to run a data center, the higher chances computer (part) manufacturers to research techs with lower energy requirements.

    I reckon both of them would be good (medium/long term) for my pocket as well.

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    1. Re:Not yet fully powered by DrVomact · · Score: 3, Insightful

      TFA cites 4 examples, none of which reached the level of self-sufficiency. So, while a step in the good direction, the data centers haven't yet reached "to generate the levels of energy required by these facilities" (as TFS suggest).

      Anyway, one can only hope the trend will continue, even if only for two very selfish reasons: a. the more mainstream the PV are, the lower the price on all the market (10 years to ROI for a decent PV home installation is still too expensive to my taste). b. the more pressure on energy consumption to run a data center, the higher chances computer (part) manufacturers to research techs with lower energy requirements.

      I reckon both of them would be good (medium/long term) for my pocket as well.

      But why do you want to buy photovoltaic (PV) panels in the first place? Do you think it's just intrinsically good for some reason? Suppose we cover every available architectural surface in our cities and towns with solar panels. Does this have any non-obvious downsides?

      1. You talk about amortizing the cost of the solar panels to you. But what about the environmental impact of manufacturing the panels? Does it create pollutants? What are the consequences of exploiting the raw materials to make the panels? Does mining them cause pollution? What are the costs of rectifying these effects?
      2. Presumably, it takes energy to mine the raw materials and to make the panels. Where does this energy come from? Again, this is not usually considered in calculating the amortization costs of the panels. If oil was burned to do any of this, aren't you adding to your "carbon footprint" by buying so many panels?
      3. These panels have a finite lifespan (I believe it's about a decade). What is the environmental impact of disposing of them? Can the components be recycled? What are the energy requirements of doing this? And again, how does it add to your "carbon footprint" to expend the energy to handle the dead panels?

      People are happier if they don't think about this, so I don't suppose many will. They will just buy PV panels and feel all warm about themselves...or make governments and corporations do it, to have more of those warm fuzzy feelings floating around.

      Not that it matters, but I just bought a PV panel because I'm going to be spending a few months in an isolated area, and need a little electricity to power my personal gadgets. But then the only alternative would be a petro-powered generator, and I'm not putting up with the noise or smell. I might even stick a few panels on my house; not because it's intrinsically good, but as a backup for those times when the grid fails.

      --
      Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
    2. Re:Not yet fully powered by Stellian · · Score: 2

      (did I mention some egotistical motives? Yes, I did)

      Even in a purely purely egotistical approach, it should be clear that the PV cell's price is heavily subsided by the cheaply available fossil fuel, which is used intensively in mining and manufacturing. There's no way to "go solar" without a large electric storage, which will degrade much more quickly than 25 years. A technology which is borderline profitable now will become prohibitively expensive assuming a high oil price.

  3. Re:A Perfect Match by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a roundabout way of going about it unless you power an entire datacentre off DC. Solar is typically stepped up via an inverter for larger operations, and the inverter syncs with the grid. Its actually kind of fun to watch our old analogue power meter stop spinning backwards and start spinning forwards when we turn the oven on and stop exporting power.

    The transition between night and day should be perfectly seemless with no batteries required. These aren't diesel generators that we need to wait for, it's a grid, there's no sync delay and every Elec101 student should be able to design a system that seemlessly goes from export to import with no need for batteries.

    That's not to say that there don't need to be batteries, but that switching to grid power is definitely not one of the reasons for them.

  4. Re:doesn't have to be the sole source by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

    Glad someone else was thinking what I was thinking (and said it better than I would have said it). Mitigating costs by using solar is never a bad idea, especially for operations such as these which do draw so much power.

  5. Offset energy usage by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This hits the nail on the head. Solar PV to offset during the day and grid power at night. I'm sick of Greenies pretending that Solar is the panacea of all things power related, and sick of the short sighted people saying it has no place in power and that's the end of story.

    This is where we should be heading. More solar power in plants with a large HVAC requirement. So during the day when it's hot you can offset the cooling energy required, and the result is reducing the grid power which is attainable, rather than replacing base load generation with some magical fairy green power station... which is not!

    1. Re:Offset energy usage by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2

      Also really helps with distribution which is an issue these days. It is a problem to upgrade the power gird and there are always distribution losses. A good way to mitigate that is more local generation, in particular in response to peak loads. If peak cooling and other loads are handled with local solar, that makes for a much more even load on the grid.

      It also compliments many generation technologies well. You find that many kinds of electrical generation are 100% or 0%. There isn't really any "Scale it back as we need less." Also startup and shutdown can be major processes, so you can't do it on a daily basis. Ok well that means waste when demand drops. Again local solar helps there. Keep the demand constant, those stations run constant and life is good.

      As you say, not a panacea, but it is an area that it can be real useful in. Put solar on the buildings to help offset peak demand and you address more than one current issue.

    2. Re:Offset energy usage by Jenming · · Score: 2

      its not that the magical fairy green power stations don't work, its just that fairy mortality rate is still too high and theres no long term plan to store their little radioactive corpses.

      --
      Morpheus, God of Dreams.
    3. Re:Offset energy usage by Stellian · · Score: 2

      Also really helps with distribution which is an issue these days. It is a problem to upgrade the power gird and there are always distribution losses. A good way to mitigate that is more local generation, in particular in response to peak loads. If peak cooling and other loads are handled with local solar, that makes for a much more even load on the grid.

      Sorry, but that makes no sense. Solar is in no way a supplier of peak power. It's output spikes widely (10:1) in a cloudy day. So you need to get that power from somewhere else, and have the infrastructure in place to get it.
      What solar provides is intermittent power with a low $ value on a liberalised energy market. In order to meet the base-load demands of a data center you need to couple it with expensive hydro or pumped-storage installations, which are constrained to specific geographic locations. So renewables are a disturbance in the grid, and not a way to "even out" the load.

  6. Re:A Perfect Match by daem0n1x · · Score: 3, Funny

    This must only be bullshit. Everybody knows solar power is a pipe dream and will never be viable. Data centres should be burning good ole coal and oil, or even tires.

    This solar power silliness reminds me of those crazy dudes in the past wasting all taxpayers' money to invent flying machines. Or cures for infections. Or transmitting images over the air in "invisible" waves. All pipe dreams.

  7. Re:If you are able... by bberens · · Score: 2

    I support the solar power *movement* but this simply isn't true. It costs about $30k for me to replace my current electricity usage. At an average power bill of $150/mo it'll take 200 months or 16.7 years to pay off. That assumes I have $30k lying around I don't need. Now if energy costs triple in 5 years I'll be quite sad that I didn't get that solar system, but even putting that money in a pitiful money market account at the local credit union will offer better returns than the PV system today. And the net carbon usage to mine and manufacture the solar panels still isn't that good.

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  8. It's just a PR stunt? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does anyone see this as anything other that a PR stunt? Facebook's datacenter uses 30MW of electricity -- a 100KW solar panel array will produce 0.1% of their power - not even a drop in the bucket. (note that it's not 0.3% since the solar panels don't provide power all day).

    If they were really interested in reducing their carbon footprint with solar, they'd be investing in one of the large-scale power plants being built in the desert where they can buy more KW per dollar. it doesn't matter whether they reduce carbon in Arizona or in Oregon, it's all the same to the environment.

    And if they were *really* interested in reducing their carbon footprint, they'd use a small nuclear reactor to generate 100% of their power on-site. Which would make a *real* difference in their carbon footprint rather than a meaningless symbolic gesture.