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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."
Title there is ONLY because it was Microsoft.
Any other company, and it would go unnoticed.
Why wasn't the Washington state utility board dragged thru the mud on this one instead of a company acting responsibly to reduce energy consumption?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There's an easy answer. They could simply build some wind mills or slap in some solar panels and then have the utility pay them at 30-80c/Kwh via a FiT(feed in tariff) like we do here in Ontario for green energy. I'm sure that it would all balance out in time.
Om, nomnomnom...
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
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.
Microsoft had a contract to buy a certain amount of power and get a good discount. They didn't buy enough power so had to pay a higher price.
I don't think this has anything to do with "idiots in state and local government".
It's a contract matter between the power producer and a corporation.
If Microsoft had been able to convince more people to use Bing and Hotmail they wouldn't be in this position.
(Cue the Bing and Hotmail jokes.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
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 $10,000."
"Microsoft exposes power company's pollution-inducing practices."
Pumped storage plant has been used since the 1960's, but it does require a dam.
On places where there is no dam, this method can not be deployed.
However, technological advancement has enabled us another way - by using ultra-capacitors.
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/piprod/documents/Session_D_Miller_rev.pdf
Advancement on capacitor technology resulted in capacitors that can store HUGE amount of electricity for a LONG time, with miniscule loss.
And many are being deployed in power grids - not only as a power storage but also acting as a power stabilizer - the ultra-capacitor can "soak up" power spikes and release power during "brown outs".
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Read the article and certainly the utility is way out of order in not promoting energy efficiency. M$ here's a smart move to make take over the local communities sewerage processing and implement methane maximisation through digestion and collection. Use the methane in those diesel generators, implement some co-generation, making use of the heat output in say in a sports centre, heated pool et al and really work up that energy efficiency. No need to ever rest on your laurels.
For the energy company, discounting to silly levels to please the state and local community it what will only be a temporary labour solution as M$ will inevitably move on at the end of the effective life of the building.
Trying to recover that lost state income by anti-conservationist practice is just in the worst taste imaginable. When are individual going to be able to cheat on state and local taxes just like corporations do by threatening to move out. Seriously there should be a Federal law to block state and local tax evasion as it affects cross state boundary transaction. All are meant to be equal under the law and that should include states and local communities, equal application of state and community taxes should be mandated just ask Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan (yeah I know they only mean it when it comes to sticking it to the poor when the rich cheating on state and local taxes it is AOK with those two).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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.