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Is a "Net Zero" Data Center Possible?
miller60 writes "HP Labs is developing a concept for a 'net zero' data center — a facility that combines on-site solar power, fresh air cooling and advanced workload scheduling to operate with no net energy from the utility grid. HP is testing its ideas in a small data center in Palo Alto with a 134kW solar array and four ProLiant servers. The proof-of-concept confronts challenges often seen in solar implementations, including the array's modest capacity and a limited window of generation hours – namely, when the sun shines. HP's approach focuses on boosting server utilization, juggling critical and non-critical loads, and making the most of every hour of solar generation. Can this concept work at scale?"
Four servers is a nerd's basement.
Wouldn't you need something like 4 racks full of servers? Running something like seti@home or distributed.net?
In its own building.
That thought this "Net Zero"?
http://www.netzero.net/
Why would my datacenter want freaking banner ads all over it?
At the equator... then you'd have some uptime!
As a net 0, No.
You can both consume power from the grid and produce it. The extra they make during the day that someone else uses is what they use at night.
Its a PR stunt though, if a bunch of companies got together and funded a massive solar farm it would have the same result and probably be more efficient.
If you're already assuming that a data center can include its own power generation systems (solar, wind, hamsters, etc.), then of course it's possible.
Just include a local coal or nuclear plant on the datacenter's property. Or, if the "renewable" detail is critical, create one in the middle of the Mojave dessert, with 30 sq. miles of solar panels, which during the sunny times also charge up a 400-ton array of lithion-ion batteries or a flywheel generator.
So I wonder if "possible" is really what you're asking.
No, they didn't.
Roughly speaking, there are three levels of "greenness", for lack of a better word. "Off the grid" means you're totally self-sufficient; probably solar during the day stored to batteries for night, combined with ultra-efficient stuff. "Net zero" means you self-generate a surplus of power sometimes and a deficit others, selling your excess to the power company and buying your need. Being "fully renewable", like what Apple announced, "just" means you're buying all renewable energy. If you read the article you linked to, you'd see that Apple will only be generating 60% of its need, which means it's far from net zero.
I'm not actually sure how much the last means in practice, considering that it's not like they have dividers that say "this electron came from solar so it goes to Apple, while this electron came from coal so it can't." So really what it turns into is Apple giving the power company more money so that hopefully they'll build more renewable sources. Not to say that I don't applaud the decision, and even 60% generation is impressive, but it is indirect.
You can't build something that will do the same job but not economically. These will remain concepts and prototypes until we can get a solar cell that is very efficient at a competitive price.
I wish this weren't the case... who likes being a slave to the grid but no one is making solar sustainable without absurd subsidies. The germans are making a big push for it right now which can only go to sad places because germany isn't known for it's sun and has huge energy needs. I wish them well and I hope I'm wrong... but it's looking to implode as soon as the maintenance costs start ramping up. We know a little about this in california. We've been building these sorts of power plants for decades. They work fine initially. But five years down the road everything goes pear shaped and you have another eco ruin in the desert.
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... Then the answer is probably no. I used to stack Dells floor to ceiling in the racks and never had a problem with power. Just interleave a PDU every so often and plug 'em all in.
Then I got a job at an HP shop. Started putting DL360s and DL380s in a rack. Breaker pops. Break out the clamp meter. No, the breaker's no defective. Those things GUZZLED. I have no idea what they did with the extra juice.
Anyway, if that's what they're using, they should forget about it. But perhaps their hardware has improved since then. People are paying more attention to power these days.
Technically, you can get 24 hour power generation with pure solar energy. Excess power can be stored as molten salts, which can in turn be used on steam turbines during off peak hours. That said, on the micro-scale that the article is talking about, I'm not sure this would even be feasible.
Can this concept work at scale?"
Almost anything can be done if you don't care what it costs. What I don't see here (or in the similar Apple and Google announcements) is any indication of what their cost target is. Does anyone have any idea what their electricity costs need to be (or what the average datacenter revenue per megaWatt is)?
You can pass the excess power on to the grid according to the definitions they're using. As long is you've given more power to the grid than you've taken out, you're a winner.
Does this experience account for the solar panel manufacturing costs and their environmental footprint as well? Even the most optimistic studies admit it is not zero.
You don't understand this electricity grid thing, do you? It isn't "dumped on the grid". It gets used. While it supplies power to the grid, either other generation has a slightly smaller load or there is a minute voltage rise (which causes things like ovens to warm up a tiny bit faster so they reach desired temperature a little quicker.) This is the whole concept of the grid - lots of generation that comes on at different times and is carefully managed to meet the load requirements. Has it occurred to you, for instance, that when a conventional generator is down for maintenance it takes power from the grid to supply lighting, heating and equipment? We don't say it is useless because it has to be shut down periodically.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The Enron system was set up to fail on purpose.
It was a political struggle. There is a huge struggle between public and private sector in my country. Anything the public sector has it doesn't want to give up. It involves power political blocks, money, power, unions, etc.
The system wasn't set up that way because the companies wanted it that way. it was set up that way because that was the law.
Most of the problems came from the state insisting that power be bought on a day to day basis. Power utilities don't like that. They charge very high rates for daily contracts and have much more reasonable rates for five year contracts. Prices spiked largely because much of the grid was forced to buy power daily.
I live within the confines of the DWP though and that was not a problem we had to deal with. As a public entity the DWP didn't have to follow the same rules and could make long term contracts unlike the private entities that were forced to buy it daily. As a result, my power remained cheap and reliable while much of the state was having black out problems.
The whole thing was used as evidence that power distribution should be a public responsibility.
In any case, the screwed up politics don't really matter. The tech isn't ready. If you want to waste your money on half baked projects then that's your business. God knows my own peers are always keen to follow up one mistake with another. I just wish they'd do it with their own money instead of everyone's and clean up their messes when they inevitably shut down.
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I haven't heard about that ISP for long time, no they are building a Data Center! It's amazing some of the things the things I don't hear about.
Because the sun only shines for about 4 peak-equivalent hours per day, so that 130KW peak array only produces enough to support a constant 21KW load.
Next you have to realise that whatever power the servers are using will end up as heat, which also has to be removed from the building with an AC system.
Still, even half of that at 10kW would seem pretty high for 4 servers.
DC to DC conversions can be done with 95+ % efficiency. Convert it to 10 MHz, push it to a high efficiency transformer (those are easy at these freqs) at 99% efficiency and convert it back to DC (at high voltage the 0.7 V of a diode isn't a big drop). It costs energy, but not that much.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Sure it's possible to have a Net Zero datacenter: Just use unary coding instead of binary, with 0 as the unary digit.
For example, by binary number 101 would become as 00000.
See? As a result, all the bits will be zero. Net zero. That means the data will weigh less, and it's good for the environment! A win for everyone.
Not really. First, being off the grid typically isn't a choice people make when they have the option of being on the grid. It's usually what people do when they live in remote areas where the grid simply doesn't reach. And anyway, being off the grid is normally less green than being net zero and on the grid. Most people who are off the grid are under capacity for their needs, and typically they make up for that by running a generator sometimes -- which is very bad environmentally. (Battery systems that let you store energy in the day for use at night are extremely big and expensive, and I don't know how common they are in real life. They require maintenance and are dangerous if not properly maintained. I suspect that a gigantic battery is not likely to be very green, either. You have all those chemicals, which have to be disposed of when the battery reaches its end of life.) On the other hand, if they have excess capacity, that's energy that's being wasted rather than going to people who are on the grid, so again it's less green than being on the grid. And it's essentially impossible to have an off-grid system that has exactly the right capacity for your needs. That's because energy production varies dramatically from day to day and month to month due to clouds and the height of the sun in the sky.
On-grid photovoltaics are actually really nice environmentally, because they produce the most power on hot, sunny days, which are exactly the days when a lot of people are using air conditioners. The solar energy helps keep the electric company from having to fire up more generators and feed more fossil fuels into them.
Here is an article that touches on how some of this plays out in real life.
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Usually that's what we call a guy with a CCNA and no real-world experience.