Green data center - solar, Net Zero

Re: Green data center - solar, Net Zero

Your question is fine here.

There is one or several people here that have worked with lower power computing.

My two cents... Get a couple Kill-A-Watt meters for the smaller systems, and you can always get a larger commercial kWhr meter for the larger servers/systems (if > 15 amps @ 120 VAC of the K-A-W meter). And run several of your configurations with standard test suites and/or real users.

Obviously, using "less" bloat ware type OS and software will allow you to use smaller processors/drives/power supplies.

Although, some OS's seem to have better support for variable clock rate processors and such.

If you can eventually come up with a chart of measured kWhrs and Processing/Customer scores--that will help you on the conservation side.

I am sure you have HVAC and building designers that know how to build an energy efficient building better than I--so unless you have specific questions, I will not go there.

On the PV Electric Side--Do you have Utility Power available?

If so, utility power + Grid Tied Solar is going to be much more cost effective and environmentally green than trying to do this all "off grid" with batteries and backup power (grid and/or gensets).

Just from a system point of view... Roughly a GT system is ~77% efficient (sun to AC power). A Off-Grid system is ~52% efficient (sun to DC to Battery to Inverter to AC). So an off-grid system has to generate (77/52=) 1.48x more power than a GT system.

Also, with Grid Tied and One Year Net Metering (if avialable at your site)--your utility effectively behaves like a giant AC battery... You can take excess power generated during the summer and use it during the winter.

With a pure Off-Grid system, your typical battery bank can cost effectively store about 3 days worth of energy... So, you may loose lots of power during good weather and have to use the backup power source (gen/grid) for power weather/winter.

There are alternative ways of doing solar power--Take a look at the Xantrex XW Hybrid type system... Some of the advantages of the Grid Tied system, but with battery backup power emergency outages... You still will want a dedicated UPS for your server--but, depending on how you size everything can help provide either a few hours of backup power, or long term backup power (with generator backup).

Lastly, at least in California, when you design your Grid Connected Power system (if you have grid)--take a look at how the billing will work. For commercial customers, there are two parts of the bill... About 50% of the cost is the standard kWhr charges. The other part is the "reservation charge"--basically, the customer's peak 15 minute energy usage for the last 1 year period...

If you can keep your peak power usage down (soft start AC, don't run AC Heat and Electric Heat at the same time, whatever)--this can really save some money on your electric bill. Using the same techniques for your GT/Off-Grid system will help keep the peak loads low, and let you keep your hardware costs down too.

In the end, if this ends up being a large system (say ~10kW or larger)--you will need to contract with a solar RE designer in your area. There is only so much we can help you with here.

-Bill