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Microsoft Pollutes To Avoid Fines
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Quincy data center, physical home of Bing and Hotmail, was fined $210,000 last year because the data center used too little electricity. To avoid similar penalties for 'underconsumption of electricity' this year, the data center burned through $70,000 worth of electricity in three days."
You get fined for saving electricity now?
Where is this world going...
It was a perfectly sane response to the situation, and btw the generation is from hydro so really what added pollution was there?
The story here is the idiots in state & local government that put in place stupid policies. Microsoft is doing what any rational person would. Burn through the equivalent of 1/3 of (last year's) fine to avoid paying triple that amount?
What would you do?
Unknown Lamer really lived up to his name with this one.
This is an issue with a utility company. The fact that it was Microsoft is a red herring. If anything, utilities should have a pricing structure that punishes overconsumption and rewards under-consumption. In this instance the utility is ass backwards and they should be the ones who are shamed.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Why would an "fine" for under-consumption (that's a "term in a contract", luv) be greater than the cost of the amount of product not consumed? A first year law student would have identified a clause like that as stupid.
but..i don't even...
I can see why Microsoft has to plan ahead with the utility to produce the right amount of electricity, and agree to some penalty for a bad estimate, since the extra production and distribution capacity obviously are not free. But what's odd is that the fine for under-usage would be more expensive than the cost of full usage. You'd think the power company could at least reduce production somewhat and so give Microsoft partial credit for what they don't use.
To avoid similar penalties for 'underconsumption of electricity' this year, the data center burned through $70,000 worth of electricity in three days.
What'd they do, shift all the load to AMD servers?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
But the probably used it to solve something special like optimizing an idle loop.
When you have free CPU and need to ramp it up and require more power (which in itself is probably only a 20-30% increase in wattage for full load), I would expect that it's done for something useful.
...to avoid a quarter million dollars in fees, I'd light a valley of old tires on fire, put it out with old refrigerant, and back fill old faithful with the remnants.
Ok, not really... but what the hell? That just a really, really bad consumption-based contract with the utility?
Think of all the bitcoins that could have being generated... RIP
"Microsoft's desire to avoid a fine combined with a power company's strict electricity usage rules resulted in the software giant deliberately wasting millions of watts of power, according to the New York Times."
Meanwhile the EU is banning incandescent light bulbs because of inefficiencies. When society no longer provides a benefit for its members: Society is screwed.
By God, what we need here are even MORE government rules!
That will solve this.
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Why wouldn't MS send its army of lobbyists to war against this problem? It would serve the greater good.
Also, a company sitting on a pile of cash should just pay the fine rather than doing the expedient thing which is totally backwards.
And the utilities can get away with this because they are natural monopolies.
Why are the utilities natural monopolies, other than because of city governments' failure to efficiently estimate the cost of tearing up a road to install conduit?
This is madness to me. It makes me laugh like a maniac walking through walmart.
Simply: No Fine needed. If they underutilize, just charge them the full amount of what they contracted for.
Being that this is a public utility company they should be set up to provide the best benefit for the public(Everyone in the state/world) as possible. So it costs money to install infrastructure. Fine. Set their bill up so their regular rate covers the infrastructure their usage demands. If they use less than expected. Meh. Still charge them the full amount. No need for a underutilization fine. If they use over charge them the overage rate for the amount over they use.
The fact that it's M$, as mentioned above, is a fluke. Large power consumers will enter into contracts that say 'we will use Xm to XM power annually with S loadshape, will not consume more than L peak power at once, and will throttle our power use up or down if asked to N times a year fo D days.'
Deals like this help optimize generation and keeps the grid balanced. Unlike in SimCity, you can't just plop down a stack of generators and wait for load to catch up with it, the generators have to output at a fixed 50/60hz (+/- a little). Like a truck engine, the fuel required to keep a particular speed is dependent on the load at any one time. Forecasting this load then becomes an issue that a *lot* of utilities put time, money, and effort into, so that they can ramp up or down as needed, keep to their own contracts of power quality and quantity, and efficiently use the generators they have. It's not like they're happy about selling less power when the loan payments on the multimillion US$ generator comes up each month.
The power customer with simply taking the more contractually prudent course of action ~ spending $70k, rather than spending $210k. The fine is as much to cover the fuel burned on generators that were left spinning for the customer as to thwack them upside the head about contracts.
(disclaimer, I write software for the energy industry)
Pollutes? Well that's a really extrem term. The used up energy to no end. But that's not directly pollution. With headlines like this it feels like slashdot is becoming a tabloid.
Most of us here at slashdot know that energy is produced anyway and we are fairly unable to store it. If anything we're unable to store it in any efficient way. If it is like the first post here says too, that it was produced with hydro-power, then where's the problem?
How many businesses do you know of that encourage customers purchase less of their product?
During the launch of a new highly anticipated gadget, such as a game console or a tablet computer, the manufacturer may place limits on the number of units that each customer can buy so as to discourage scalpers.
Simply stating "Your minimum electric bill shall be x" would have made everyone happy.
Here in Australia we're regularly reminder to be 'water wise' because we live in such an arid country. (I'm not arguing this point.)
Earlier this year we were whacked with higher water rates (Sydney) explicitly because the water board's revenue fell because general water conservation proceeded too well.
And get this: a desalination plant was recently constructed in Sydney which the government is contractually obliged to run for x hours per year. Because of that, they redirect fresh water from dams (which are now, thankfully, relatively full) into the ocean because otherwise they wouldn't need to run the desal machinery.
Now, I can see how each of these individual decisions was arrived at. But I can't help but wonder if some future, more enlightened society will look back and shake their heads at how small we were.
One Newer MS datacenter has it's own substation on site and substations are not cheap to build so that cab be why part of the deal was that we where to use X power or pay a fine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?_r=0
It hasn't happened to us AFAIK, and even if it did the owner pays water, but...
I heard in the East Bay some residents were paying higher rates because they failed to reduce their water consumption during a dry spell.
The problem? They were already consuming less water before the drought, and had no room to reduce. That's right. The utility was basing rates on the percentage of reduction during times of tight supply, instead of absolute usage.
Result? I find myself thinking, "better let the faucet run long when there's not a drought, so that when there is a drought I can conserve and the landlord won't call me up and tell me the rent is increasing because utilities cost too much".
Really, any sane policy is going to be based on how many rooms you have in your house. The asessors know this, and it's public knowledge so the utility could pull it. Legal occupancy is based on rooms in the house, so as a pleasant side effect people that are jamming too many occupants into a house would pay higher water bills too.
Basically large companies need to know what their costs are going to be long term. They enter in to Power Purchasing Agreements with electricity generators much like leasing a building. Based on these agreements the electricity generator knows what is expected of it's power plants and maintains them to meet these requirements. If demand is lower than expected they may have to shut down a plant or two since there isn't an economical way to store electricity on such a large scale. It costs a lot of money to shut down one of these facilities and even more to ramp back up. Rather than eat these costs many PPA's include penalties that will cover these contingencies. Since I'm tl;dr the article I don't know if that's what happened here but it makes sense that if Microsoft overestimated it's power needs on its PPA then these fines would have been to cover the plants down time. Since another comment mentioned hydro generation I'm guessing Microsoft running inefficient on purpose to avoid the fines didn't hurt the environment too much.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
#2 is totally wrong. The Hydro plant was built before Bill Gates was out of diapers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam
Microsoft moved there because Grant County PUD was having problems selling all their power, and it was dirt cheap to build there.
Since then, power demand has gone up, and GCPud has a multitude of customers, anywhere on the national grid.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Look a little closer...
Microsoft, when it was looking for a place to locate, chose this rural Washington town because the town offered them electricity at about 1/3 the regular going rate, as long as they purchased a certain amount of electricity from this municipal utility.
It was a contract, one of those things that both sides are supposed to honor.
Microsoft didn't have to "wastefully burn" the additional energy, but they were contractually obligated to meet the conditions of the contract: cheap electricity if bought in bulk.
Microsoft could have just met the contractual obligation by paying what it had promised to pay.
The entire "wastefully burning" energy was done by Microsoft to try to shame the municipality into giving them an even sweeter sweetheart deal, something that mega-corporations are doing in all 50 states. Create enough negative publicity ("Government forces Microsoft to waste electricity!!!") and the municipality would say, "Sure, fine, don't pay us what you promised to pay us when we gave you the land, built the infrastructure that your datacenter required and gave you enormous tax dodges on top of that. Just stop saying we forced you to waste energy!".
This is why you have to look a layer or two deeper than the headline or summary when you see a story that seems a little too neatly designed to create outrage.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Then they should have sounded the horn in their advertising saying they actually pay fines for not using enough power, and link to proof.
See how long the power company keeps fining them, I don't care if they did sign a contract. A monthly minimum amount with the ability to buy more, like mobile phone minutes would have been the better option than a yearly amount with options to fine.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
His point was: they shouldn't have to.
I'd be curious if they converted that $70,000 of power into $70,000 worth of bitcoin during that 3 days. Seems like it would be a good way to offset the costs.
A penalty for failure to use power signals the beginning of a coming economic horror story. As homes and businesses start to provide their own energy it means that any given square in a power grid will pay less and less to the power companies. That means that at first only small numbers of people go off the grid and there is a small increase in unit cost to cover the loss of sales. Then we get to the point at which half of all homes and businesses no longer purchase power and the cost to those still on the grid more than doubles. Tiny businesses and poor families will be the first to fail. By the time two thirds of homes and businesses are off the grid the cost of power to a home or small business will be crushing. It is rather like trying to provide high speed cable in remote areas. When homes are twenty miles a part there are lots of problems supplying cable or even phone service. Now the perverted notion that those that supply their own power must suddenly be taxed to support those too poor to get their own off the grid abilities is as backwards as an idea can get.
I think the real issue is why didn't the datacenter come up to capacity. To me the answer is BING. That is to say the reports indicate the primary function of the data center was to service the Bing service. Me thinks Microsoft's expectations were a bit high when they signed the contract in the first place.
Because I don't want a different utility company digging up the road in front of my house every other month.
An efficient price for utility construction permits would take into account this inconvenience. But because the city owns all the roads, there's no way to find the most efficient price.
What'd they do, shift all the load to AMD servers?
Don't be silly. Every one of the towers come with a huge button named in bright letters TURBO. They pushed that button in every machine.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I have a love/hate relationship with Slashdot. One thing is for sure: I'm tired of all the *nix fan boys who find every possible way to smear Microsoft. Here are a few alternative titles, just to irk the haters:
"Microsoft wisely saves $140,000 by simply using electricity."
"Microsoft deliberately uses electricity to avoid ridiculous fine."
"Microsoft forces utility board to reduce ludicrous fine by $10,000."
"Microsoft exposes power company's pollution-inducing practices."
Pumped storage plant has been used since the 1960's, but it does require a dam.
On places where there is no dam, this method can not be deployed.
However, technological advancement has enabled us another way - by using ultra-capacitors.
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/piprod/documents/Session_D_Miller_rev.pdf
Advancement on capacitor technology resulted in capacitors that can store HUGE amount of electricity for a LONG time, with miniscule loss.
And many are being deployed in power grids - not only as a power storage but also acting as a power stabilizer - the ultra-capacitor can "soak up" power spikes and release power during "brown outs".
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This is a penalty due to a contractual obligation. It's not a fine.
It's still wasteful, though.
So, what if the data center isn't near a suitable reservoir.
Even if it were, I am sure there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of people complaining that MicroSoft displaced them to put a reservoir there.
So the problem would have been avoided, if Microsoft could sell that electricity again. They might have lost some money (or not, since residential rates are much higher) but wouldn't have to waste the whole thing.
In other countries you get the grid from the local power company but then can pick a provider. Funny enough that works only if there is a strong government organization in charge of "deregulating" the network monopoly. Kind of what the US tried with phone lines before the baby bells got rid of it again.
I don't think that there are many ultra capacitors adding storage capacity to grids. Its definitely on the table for the future however at the moment the capacitor banks that you see at your transmission yards are actually for power factor correction not power storage.
birthplace of the 'retarded'...
They are wasting hydroelectric power, which is not polluting.
The article mentions diesel generator pollution as a sort of fluff item, but the power that Microsoft is wasting is generated by hydroelectricity, and, therefore, is not polluting.
It is important not only to realize that they are wasting hyroelectricity, which is non-polluting, but more important to realize that Microsoft's much larger data center in The Dalles, Oregon, (along with Google's data center next door), are also powered by hydroelectricity. This should be noted in stark contrast to the mostly coal-fueled Facebook data centers.
This is a non-story, diesel backup generator pollution nonwithstanding.
Kriston
I take it then you've never heard of compressed-air power storage?
Same principle as with dams, except very large air tanks are used. Scroll compressors and turbines make it possible the most efficient way of storing excess power as well, and the system is near-zero maintenance, unlike batteries. Demand response is also good and the most useful thing about this system is that it scales down to tiny installations - to the point that it could be used to save power from solar during the day for overnight use.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
There are not more than 8 factories that I know of, that are producing industrial-grade ultra-capacitors, that are to be deployed for the purpose of power-storage / power-stabilizing, near power generating plants and also in the power grid.
And all the factories are churning out ultra-capacitors as fast as they can.
But it is not enough.
That is why it will take some time for more ultra-capacitors to show up in places that need them.
The bottle-neck is with the manufacturers.
The main patent for the ultra-capacitors is owned by Sanyo, of Japan.
They were actually trying to find ways to develop an ultra-capacity rechargeable battery. They came up with the idea of using nano-scale materials (that was back in the late 1990's or so) and successfully produced a re-chargeable NiMH battery that can keep the charge for as long as 36 months, and at 97% capacity.
That patent was subsequently licensed to other re-chargeable battery manufacturers - including GP and Energizer.
And later, someone found that the same technique can be also used in enhancing ultra-capacitors, so they licensed it to capacitor manufacturers.
However, the industrial grade capacitor manufacturers in this planet that we live in happen to behave much like OPEC.
There are only few manufacturers and they control the market, and they restrict the manufacturing to only a handful factories - so that they can charge an arm and a leg for their products.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There are also experiments with compressed air storage, where you pump a big open cavern up in pressure while you have excess power, and consume it (via wind turbines) when you are short.
Ultra-capacitors are indeed being deployed to the grid to great success. But the cost estimate of $0.05 kWh/cycle is in addition to the cost of generation. Currently the average cost of generation is $0.05 kWh so any electricity you generate and store now costs you $0.1 kWh. You just DOUBLED the cost of your electricity! It's still the best cost/benefit option for grid storage just not as appealing as having a PPA with a built in cushion. I suspect more widespread adoption will require regulation.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Here in Brazil, i was told by a sales rep from one of the biggest telcos that, for them to waive the basic subscription fee, I would have to spend at least 2,000 minutes on local calls every month. I told her I needed a special plan, because I hardly ever make local phone calls, but spend a fair amount in long distance every month. She told me she couldn't do anything, but that I could call some number at the end of my shift and leave the phone hanging there, just to spend those minutes...
Is anyone really surprised by what these criminals do anymore? They're nothing but low life dirt bags.
I see the Microsoft shills are out in force today spreading shit, FUD and trying to spin their daddy out of their latest clusterfuck of stupidity.
Compressed air has some major losses due to heat. As you compress the air it heats up considerably after it cools the heat energy is lost. Pumped storage can also be deployed on a much larger scale given the right geological layout.
What is the $/kWh of industrial supercaps right now? The article you linked above had some projected numbers from startup companies, one of which seems to have gone under and the other of which is still in startup mode. I just helped put together an experimental off-grid PV system with 3kWh lead acid capacity at somewhere from $200-$250/kWh storage cost.
Is there anywhere a hobbyist or researcher could buy a few kWh of indsutrial supercaps?
Could it be because few people care about Microsoft's online services a.k.a its 'ecosystem'?
Or was Microsoft being green and obsessed with saving the planet, lower carbon footprint yada yada...
I'll let you think about that.
It's an electricity distribution problem and should never be a data centre problem. A small pump storage system near me can sustain 500MW for a while when you pull the plug and let the water out. Most are much larger. I know Microsoft have very large data centres but I cannot see them needing anywhere near 500MW for one of them.
We're only discussing this due to an enormous fuckup that should never happen - the sort of thing more braindead than any example of a government stuffup used to push the myth that private enterprise is always better at making use of resources.
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A workaround is to add a bit of water (mist) to absorb that heat- reducing the temperature increase and thus the energy loss.
Interesting presentation. The graphs could use some legends, but the message is sorta clear...
Microsoft data center fined for not consuming enough electricity, you say?
Christmas seems to come earlier every year, retailers looking to maximize profits have things set up so that as soon as one holiday ends, the paraphernalia from the next replaces it on shelves the day after the previous holiday occurs. Halloween shit this year appeared right after the Labor Day holiday sales ended, all the summer stuff that will be salable next year and still produce a profit after accounting for storage costs went to storage, what didn't got shipped off to the clearance aisle, or the dollar stores, etc. and the cycle continues. Thanksgiving stuff will be on shelves November 1st, and Christmas stuff will flood onto the shelves like clockwork on December 1st, joining all the Christmas stuff that has already been on shelves since late July.
That observation made, I still think it's a little early for the April 1st jokes... can't we at least wait until January?
I have no problem with the utility company saying "You have agreed to purchase X kWh of power for $Y. You owe us $Y and for that amount you may use any amount of power up to and including X. If you go over, you pay more, if you are under, you do not get a refund." No problem, and it sounds like MS was ok with a situation like that too.
However they wanted to charge MS MORE money for using LESS power. That is completely retarded. There is no way it costs the utility company more money to produce less power, it is just a money grab on their part. MS thus made the sensible choice from their standpoint and simply wasted power.
This is just greed from the utility company, trying to fine someone for more than the cost. Were they not stupid they'd take the $70k for power they didn't produce and walk away happy.
The problem is they want MORE for not using it. Doesn't sound like MS had any problem with paying the $70k. They agreed to buy power at a bulk rate and that rate stands, use it or not. The problem they had is the utility company wanted to charge them more for not using power than for using it. The opted to simply use it.
Think of it like this: Suppose I make a deal with you where you get two tanks of gas per month, for a year, at a fixed price. You do it to get a better price, I do it to get a revenue stream up front. If you go over, you have to pay more, but you don't get a refund for going under. So you go on vacation one month, and don't use your fillups. I then send you a fine for twice the cost of the tank of gas. I say you have to pay more because you neglected to fill up.
See how stupid that would be?
If the utility company was saying to MS "You used less power than you thought you would, but you still have to pay us for the bulk contract," and MS was refusing, I'd be supporting the utility company. You agree to the bulk deal, you pay for the bulk deal, use it or not. However they are saying "You used less power than you thought, so we want you to pay the bulk rate, and then pay an additional 200% for the power you didn't use." Hence the utility company is stupid.
My electric-arc furnace is ready to go! No need wasting all that power, I'm going to turn some scrap into steel with it instead and sell it on the open market!
The penalty for under-consumption should never be more than the cost of the electricity that one would have to consume to avoid the penalty. There's no point in motivating them to *waste* electricity.
On places where there is no dam, this method can not be deployed
Oh sigh.On places where there is no dam AND nobody understands how to transport electricity, this method can be deployed.
The netherlands USES this methods and the dams are in Norway. That is quite a distance, look it up on Apple Maps!
Pumped storage can also be deployed on a much larger scale given the right geological layout.
You mean, like creating artificial (or reversing an existing) Artesian Well and later using it to turn the turbine?
I had the same idea a while ago. But then It occurred to me that it could be generalized:
You probably don't even need that much water. The power of the water behind the dam is proportional to product of hydrostatic pressure at the level where turbines are located and the flow of the water. If there was something much heavier then water pressing down on it, a relatively little water would simulate a deep, deep accumulation lake and allow storage of greater amount of energy. So, just make a big variable volume tank and build a huge concrete weight (or steel springs) opposing the expansion of the tank, and Voila! - a pumped storage wherever you need one.
MS agreed to purchase X amount of electricity and pay a penalty if they don't. It's no different than an ETF on a cell contract, or any other ordinary contractual agreement.
Nothing to see here, except MS negotiated badly.
No, it doesn't require a dam, it requires 2 bodies of water with lots of water one elevated as far above another as possible. So a mountain with a lake at the top and one at the bottom. And they can be man made pools at one or both ends. Ultra-capacitors are strictly short term hours/days, pumped storage is a lot longer being as long as you have that pool of water up there and it hasn't evaporated much.
This is no workaround.
When you absorb the heat in water it is still lost. The only effect is that the temperature will be lower.
Power companies love pumped storage because it is one of the few types of power stations which is basically instant-on. They can charge it out on the market at ridiculous prices.
The bad part is, every site that is suitable for pumped storage either already has it, or can't get it because of the environmental permitting. All the best "natural" sites have it already. Sure, you can take the top off a mountain and build a man-made lake where the top of the mountain used to be, but people really frown on that. The quantities of water needed to make any sort of difference is staggering. It has to be a big reservoir.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
In my home state, the politicians and their puppeteers are pushing hard for "decoupling".
Decoupling means there's no connection between the power you use and the bill you receive. You pay the bill, period, no options, and the bill is whatever the power company says it is.
Common citizens like myself don't call this "decoupling" we call it "state approved extortion" or "regulatory capture". The majority of citizens hate the idea, but that will probably not hinder its passage into law, since the minority that favors it has very deep pockets.
The power company flacks and their wholly owned politicians explain that the power company has no incentive to reward energy conservation; selling more power makes more money when there's a Public Utilities Commission regulating pricing (which they are also trying to abolish, of course, since it's a crime against Saint Ayn Rand and her holy prophet Reagan to regulate state-sponsored physical monopolies like power distributors). They say that if they had decoupling, they would no longer punish companies like Microsoft for conserving energy, because they'd be charging us the same bill no matter what.
Obviously, in real life, under decoupling they'd charge Microsoft based on whether Microsoft was advancing their political goals or not; anyone who helped them dismantle anti-pollution laws and worker safety laws etc. would get a lower bill. But I'm sure they'd have some twisted, otherwordly rationale for this, just like they have for decoupling.
Somehow, this weird blend of tyranny, oligarchy and plutocracy gets labeled considered "laissez faire capitalism" by True Believers in the Libertarian/Neo-Conservative Axis.
They could have use that electricity for something useful, like giving free electricity to the neighbourhood.
Ultra-capacitors are 10 times bigger than lead-acid for the same storage; 30 times bigger than Li+. It takes 15000 farads to match a 2700mAh 1.5V AA battery's storage capacity; the capacitor charges and discharges faster and can do so millions of times instead of thousands. A large supercapacitor could push 5000F at 2.7V, so three car battery sized things to match a AA battery.
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The temperature is much lower and so less heat energy is lost during the storage. The rate of cooling is much lower.
And a fair amount of the heat in the water can allegedly be reused:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericagies/2012/01/25/greening-the-grid-lightsail-aims-to-make-power-cleaner-by-making-energy-storage-cheap-and-plentiful/
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/danielle-fong/
Hey MS, do some good to the world! (somebody at MS is having a fit right about now). Donate the electricity to others, thus keeping to your purchase agreement, and being green at the same time. Who knows, people may actually start to like you too (somebody else, at a geek site, is having a fit right about now).
Taco Cowboy's link a few posts above addresses this and acknowledges the decreased energy density but made claims that large-scale supercaps would provide better economy in terms of $/(kWh*(number of cycles)). But of course $/kWh is also important because if they are highly capital intensive then they won't necessarily be attractive.
My point is they're not a battery replacement. Now, as far as capacitors go, they're really high-density capacitors. If your usage is erratic over the scale of, say, 5% of your storage--which is probably deep cycle lead-acid--you can have a big bank of supercaps that smooths that out. This prevents cycling on the batteries, which wears them out QUICKLY, whereas supercaps don't give a shit (very few thousands of cycles versus millions or tens of millions of cycles). On the down side,as supercaps supply 10% of the storage of lead acid, you need a supercap bank HALF THE PHYSICAL SIZE of your lead-acid bank. Using expensive Li+? Your supercap bank will be huge compared to your Li+ bank.
Supercaps are basically a flawed design. They don't actually use a dielectric; two conductors are placed together, but the voltage is so low it doesn't jump across the nanoscale gap between them. That means a high voltage bank theoretically needs a bunch in series; in practice, they're damn high output, so really just use a DC-DC converter.
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Ah, the second link made things clear.
If you just compress air without adding water, it heats up.
This heat is lost over time, lowering efficiency.
When you spray in water, you take this heat loss up front, that is: if you don't re-use the heat in the water.
The brilliant thing LightSail Energy is doing is that they re-use the heat in the water on expansion.
And because the heat capacity of water is much higher than that of air, relatively little water is needed.
If you would just release the heat in the water to the environment (which I thought was what happened when you described the cooling step), efficiency would be lower than without the cooling step.
Unfortunately, it seems that while what they did wasn't really reasonable, the alternative was also unreasonable..
However, beyond that, it appears that their power usage was down because they were running on diesel backup generators a lot of the time, apparently during maintenance etc.
So maybe the power company needs to clean up its billing (don't fine in excess of power not used), and MS needs to fix things so that maintenance doesn't spend a lot of time running polluting diesel generators.
I take it you've never been a bean counter at a large energy company?
And I've been following compressed-air tech for a very long time.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I disagree, since I've visited a very small reserviour (as such things go) which can provide that full 500MW for less than two hours. That is enough for a lot of situations and that paticular one can also supply 250MW for around four hours.
Even with small hydro units like that the turbines are large - I gained access to the penstock that feeds it from the reserviour by climbing in between turbine blades. There may have been several turbines and that may have just been the one at the highest point, I can't remember, it was in 1994 and I only worked in that place once and in one location in that unit.
Yeah, but they're WAY more exciting than a AA battery if you short the leads. :)
In theory to reuse the heat in the water you just have to make sure enough air passes the water (or something heated by the water) somehow - then the cooling of the air due to expansion will be reduced, and so the pressure will be higher than it would be otherwise.
I think LightSail uses the spray method to do that.
But it might not be necessary - you could have heat sinks in the storage chamber and water in the heat sinks to absorb the heat. This would be more expensive in terms of parts and material, but there would be no moving parts and no water in the air. But it might be harder to achieve a good enough heat transfer with the heatsink and fins method, compared to a spray of warmish water.