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Microsoft 'Cuts The Cord' With A Local Power Utility To Pursue Greener Energy (seattletimes.com)
Frosty Piss summarizes the Seattle Times:
Microsoft will bypass Puget Sound Energy to secure carbon-free power on wholesale markets under an agreement with state regulators. In 2015, 60 percent of PSE electricity came from coal and natural-gas plants, according to company statistics. The agreement calls for Microsoft to pay a $23.6 million transition fee to Puget Sound Energy, which the utility will pass on to its Western Washington customers... But the settlement does not address one major financial issue that hangs over PSE and its customers -- how to handle the costs of shutting down coal-fired units in the Colstrip, Montana, power station... State regulators and Puget Sound Energy determined that Microsoft is legally responsible for a share of the Colstrip, Montana coal-fired generating plant costs.
There is no mention of "cord cutting" in TFA. The power company will just route "cleaner energy" to MS through the existing network.
No only that, but PSE is going to be stuck with the clean-up costs of the sites containing the coal-fired energy generation plants. Microsoft used the system under the guise of clean energy to avoid having to take responsibility for any site remediation. Microsoft is just one more proof that no company does anything out of altruism - they do not really give a rat's ass about where the energy comes from, so long as its supply is never (or rarely) disrupted and they can keep their data centers churning out services for outlook.com. I am so glad to be completely free of Microsoft since 1998 when I discovered OpenBSD.
Maybe it's just me indeed. But, for me:
"cutting the cord" != having your provider setup new gateways
Yes and no...
to end your connection with someone, OR to stop depending on their support
http://www.macmillandictionary...
Synonyms include: "finish with" a relationship, which may or may not include all components of the relationship. So there would be several possibilities including Microsoft setting up a giant wind farm or tons of solar on their Redmond campus, or simply (as is the case) not buying energy from the local utility while still using the infrastructure.
But this raises a question: The huge one time payment not withstanding, it seems to me that even though they will purchase their energy from some other source, they still use the utility's wires, so there should be some continuing expense for the use of that infrastructure, shouldn't there be? I haven't read anything about that.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
No only that, but PSE is going to be stuck with the clean-up costs of the sites containing the coal-fired energy generation plants.
There is this:
The agreement calls for Microsoft to pay a $23.6âmillion transition fee to PSE, which the utility will pass on to its Western Washington customers.
A "transition fee"... What does this mean? They have to pay not use the utility? I'm not saying the fee is bad, just that the story doesn't say what this fee is for. Reading the actual agreement suggests that the costs of the Montana clean-up is still an open issue and will be litigated.
Now, Microsoft "dislike" aside, and for the sake of argument let's suppose it was some other big customer, why should they pay anything for the clean-up and shut-down of the Montana coal plant? Did Microsoft (or any other big customer) have some powerful say in the construction of this plant? A choice not to support it's use? Is there some compelling reason why Microsoft (or any other customer) should pay for Puget Sound Energy's ill-advised reliance on an energy resource that was almost certainly environmentally questionable when the plant was built?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Quebec is 99% hydro, go to Quebec then...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Power companies do this sort of thing all the time. For instance...
Back when we still resided in Seattle, (20+ years ago) my wife and I were up in NE Washington on our way home from a vacation in the Canadian Rockies. We decided to take in a dam tour up in that corner of the state. Funny thing was, that dam was owned by Seattle City Light! They weren't sending that electricity over 300 miles of dedicated line over to Seattle, though - they were selling it to local utilities, and through a game of economic musical chairs were in turn eventually getting an equivalent amount of electricity from sources much nearer to Seattle.
#DeleteChrome
You always get the same electrons with AC, they just move back and forth to transmit energy so the electron from the plant never reach you ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I assume that, like most huge data centers with enormous power drains, their needs were involved in the planning of and construction of regional power plants, so having a fee associated with a shutdown or changeover makes lots of sense.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This is totally not an accounting gimmick
Sarcasm aside you hit the nail on the head but for all the wrong reasons. This IS exactly an accounting gimmick designed specifically to drive investment in green energy. If I pay extra on my bill I don't expect a green electron to flow down my cable instead of a black one, but I do expect that money to be transferred to a green energy project.
Enough green energy projects start up, eventually the black electrons go away completely as the coal plants are no longer viable as customers pay a bit extra to ensure that they don't receive money.
Accounting, yes
Gimmick, no.