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There's a row of new(ish) datacenters in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) where there used to be a row of fabs -- because a large amount of power infrastructure was

There's a row of new(ish) datacenters in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) where there used to be a row of fabs -- because a large amount of power infrastructure was already available after the fabs were torn town. All of these datacenters use energy storage to tide themselves over power failures. Why is it that energe storage works for datacenters but not for fabs?

mattnewton 9y ago
My guess would be fabs take a lot more energy at peak draw- they have to melt the components in a chip, and data centers are trying not to melt them.
- AdamJacobMuller 9y ago
  Sure, but, do they need to keep producing at peak when there is a power outage? You must have a plan to ramp down to a steady state of consumption that keeps things safe. Even if they need many megawatts, the 50 million in damages figure quoted elsewhere buys a hell of a lot of generators.
  - cheeseprocedure 9y ago
    My layperson's understanding of the furnaces producing silicon ingots is that they can't power down in-process; best case, they take weeks to bring back into service, while the worst case is serious damage to the equipment as the silicon inside recrystallizes. I wonder if it's even possible to ramp down this single process without a similar hit to productivity as an uncontrolled power loss, never mind the other stages in the fab process. If not, fabs can consume tens of megawatts, so what does it cost to build and maintain the necessary backup generation capacity to weather a 30-minute outage? One interesting example: USD $1.5 million for 10MW of flywheel-based backup capacity (http://ir.p10industries.com/news-releases/news-release-details/active-powers-cleansource-protect-state-art-wafer-fab-51 http://ir.p10industries.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...) - but these will last ~15 seconds under full load.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      > so what does it cost to build and maintain the necessary backup generation capacity to weather a 30-minute outage? Tesla's install at the Hornsdale Power Reserve [1] is 129 MW of storage capable of discharging at 100MW. This could supply power for far more than 30 minutes if an outage occurs. Estimated cost is $50 million, which appears to be roughly the same cost as this manufacturing failure, so there's a middle ground to be found. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Wind_Farm#Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Wind_Farm#Hornsdale_...
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      > but these will last ~15 seconds under full load. Flywheels are an alternative for battery backups. They are used to give enough time for generators to come online and stabilize.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      As a layman, can you explain why a fab is producing silicon ingots? Instead of consuming them. Because they are two different things.
      - cheeseprocedure 9y ago
        Nope - silly assumption on my part.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Do you have any evidence that a fab, which processes many wafers per day, really has significant peak/low draw differences?
gtdawg 9y ago
By energy storage, I assume you mean the energy stored in diesel, and released when combusted and used to turn a generator. If you are referring to batteries, do you have any links? I would be really interested to learn more about large scale datacenters that are using something other than diesel/natural gas for backup power.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Microsoft: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/17/microsoft-were-eliminating-backup-generators http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/17/micro... I mean, it's sort of silly to locate your data centers where you can't use on site renewable generation, no? If you're going to put a datacenter somewhere due to low land costs, but still meets your user latency requirements (speed of light), if you can generate onsite with solar and meet your consumption needs, and battery back it, and have utility power, you don't need large diesel gensets for battery backup (gensets that are rarely used but depreciating constantly). Apple built a 200MW solar farm to power its Reno, NV datacenter. It also built a 50MW solar power plant on 300 acres in Florence, Ariz., which is used to power its Mesa data center. They use 100% renewables to power all of their data centers. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3161732/sustainable-it/apple-to-build-200mw-solar-farm-to-power-data-center.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3161732/sustainable-it... And in manufacturing, Tesla is covering the entire roof of Gigafactory 1 with solar. It can be done.
  - cheeseprocedure 9y ago
    Is hundreds of acres of solar an option in South Korea?
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      It appears so. https://www.koreaexpose.com/solar-agriculture-s-koreas-new-farming-revolution/ https://www.koreaexpose.com/solar-agriculture-s-koreas-new-f...
- greglindahl 9y ago

mattnewton 9y ago

My guess would be fabs take a lot more energy at peak draw- they have to melt the components in a chip, and data centers are trying not to melt them.

AdamJacobMuller 9y ago
Sure, but, do they need to keep producing at peak when there is a power outage? You must have a plan to ramp down to a steady state of consumption that keeps things safe. Even if they need many megawatts, the 50 million in damages figure quoted elsewhere buys a hell of a lot of generators.
- cheeseprocedure 9y ago
  My layperson's understanding of the furnaces producing silicon ingots is that they can't power down in-process; best case, they take weeks to bring back into service, while the worst case is serious damage to the equipment as the silicon inside recrystallizes. I wonder if it's even possible to ramp down this single process without a similar hit to productivity as an uncontrolled power loss, never mind the other stages in the fab process. If not, fabs can consume tens of megawatts, so what does it cost to build and maintain the necessary backup generation capacity to weather a 30-minute outage? One interesting example: USD $1.5 million for 10MW of flywheel-based backup capacity (http://ir.p10industries.com/news-releases/news-release-details/active-powers-cleansource-protect-state-art-wafer-fab-51 http://ir.p10industries.com/news-releases/news-release-detai...) - but these will last ~15 seconds under full load.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    > so what does it cost to build and maintain the necessary backup generation capacity to weather a 30-minute outage? Tesla's install at the Hornsdale Power Reserve [1] is 129 MW of storage capable of discharging at 100MW. This could supply power for far more than 30 minutes if an outage occurs. Estimated cost is $50 million, which appears to be roughly the same cost as this manufacturing failure, so there's a middle ground to be found. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Wind_Farm#Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Wind_Farm#Hornsdale_...
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    > but these will last ~15 seconds under full load. Flywheels are an alternative for battery backups. They are used to give enough time for generators to come online and stabilize.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    As a layman, can you explain why a fab is producing silicon ingots? Instead of consuming them. Because they are two different things.
    - cheeseprocedure 9y ago
      Nope - silly assumption on my part.
greglindahl 9y ago
Do you have any evidence that a fab, which processes many wafers per day, really has significant peak/low draw differences?

gtdawg 9y ago

By energy storage, I assume you mean the energy stored in diesel, and released when combusted and used to turn a generator. If you are referring to batteries, do you have any links? I would be really interested to learn more about large scale datacenters that are using something other than diesel/natural gas for backup power.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Microsoft: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/17/microsoft-were-eliminating-backup-generators http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/17/micro... I mean, it's sort of silly to locate your data centers where you can't use on site renewable generation, no? If you're going to put a datacenter somewhere due to low land costs, but still meets your user latency requirements (speed of light), if you can generate onsite with solar and meet your consumption needs, and battery back it, and have utility power, you don't need large diesel gensets for battery backup (gensets that are rarely used but depreciating constantly). Apple built a 200MW solar farm to power its Reno, NV datacenter. It also built a 50MW solar power plant on 300 acres in Florence, Ariz., which is used to power its Mesa data center. They use 100% renewables to power all of their data centers. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3161732/sustainable-it/apple-to-build-200mw-solar-farm-to-power-data-center.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3161732/sustainable-it... And in manufacturing, Tesla is covering the entire roof of Gigafactory 1 with solar. It can be done.
- cheeseprocedure 9y ago
  Is hundreds of acres of solar an option in South Korea?
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    It appears so. https://www.koreaexpose.com/solar-agriculture-s-koreas-new-farming-revolution/ https://www.koreaexpose.com/solar-agriculture-s-koreas-new-f...
greglindahl 9y ago