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Interesting that the colo electricity cost goes up that much, that’s a lot more expensive than what I will pay as a normal consumer, I’d have thought they’d get

Interesting that the colo electricity cost goes up that much, that’s a lot more expensive than what I will pay as a normal consumer, I’d have thought they’d get better discounts.

jo909 4y ago
I'd guess that they used to have very good discounted contracts but are not able to renew them anymore. The cost they charge also includes the cooling, so you could see it as for example 30c/kWh for power, 15c/kWh for cooling to compare it to a consumer contract. Maybe they have published their ratio of that split "on average" before.
tecleandor 4y ago
There's a more than probable markup for redundancy and management. Anyway, I believe industrial power billing is quite a trip (at least in Spain), and probably have a miriad of different prices depending on the hour of the day, and different guarantees of delivery compared to a regular user.
- bombcar 4y ago
  In many places if you as a business are willing to take intermittent power cuts (with varying warning times) you can get significant discounts.
kuboble 4y ago
I believe in EU household electricity is largely subsidized and the industry always paid more.
- PinguTS 4y ago
  Nope. Wrong. The economy of scale works also for electricity. We don't have subsidized electricity. The other way around we had additional premiums to pay for green energy. That got yanked and is now paid by the general taxes.
- doikor 4y ago
  In Finland it is the other way around. Household pays the full price with industry paying the same but get huge tax breaks. Basically residential and companies pay the same but are taxed very differently in a form that ends up with companies paying way less electricity taxes.
- barney54 4y ago
  It’s the other way around, at least in Germany. Households pay more than industry for electricity. https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_prices/ https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_price...
  - kuboble 4y ago
    Well. I have to admit you're right. But it seems to not be universally true. In Poland I have found that price for companies can be 3x higher based on at least one source. C11 - the tariff for the companies seem to cost 1.6 PLN / kwH [1] G11 - the same tarrif for households seem to cost more like 0.4-0.5PLN / kwH [2] [1] https://www.energa.pl/mala-firma/umowy/prad-dla-firm.html https://www.energa.pl/mala-firma/umowy/prad-dla-firm.html [2] https://www.energa.pl/dom/umowy/taryfa.html https://www.energa.pl/dom/umowy/taryfa.html
    - ReadTheLicense 4y ago
      I'd guess this is because of price regulation, not subsidy.
      - kuboble 4y ago
        What's the difference?
        ReadTheLicense 4y ago
        No money transfer from the state to the energy company.
lima 4y ago
In colos, the cost of electricity typically also pays for air conditioning since it's a perfect linear relationship - more power goes in, more AC needed to get the heat out. Plus some overhead costs (but with Hetzner, I'd assume they're minimal - they have razor thin margins).
lucb1e 4y ago
Colo costs are just insane compared to consumer prices. At home: 12 or 42 €/month (details¹), depending on whether I want gigabit upload or not. Advantages: - fast LAN speeds, - don't need to go anywhere to do hardware maintenance/replacement/additions, - low cost, - partially solar powered if you have solar panels, - don't need to make things fit in a rack (can be a raspberry pi, an old laptop, or whatever you like), - likely you have more space available, and you get to share that gigabit uplink if you pay for it for your server. Colocation: €128 / month (120 base price, 8 electricity in germany; if you want to fly to Finland for accessing your hardware, then electricity is half the price). Advantages: - redundant power supply, - maybe noise if you don't have a separate room for this stuff, - you can do this also if your home has poor internet. ¹ I pay €50/month for my internet connection regardless (I didn't buy a bigger bundle for the server), the server uses ~35W average which makes ~26 kWh/month which makes ~9 €/month. Though, I'd pay the base connection fee for electricity anyway so the added cost is even a bit lower. Rent is about €6 per m², but I have my stuff in between storage (above and below) so the column above those 1.5 m² is basically cut in three, coming out to about 3 €/month added cost. The added cost of hosting a server at home is about 12 euros per month. If I wanted to upgrade to gigabit symmetric internet, that would be an added 30 €/month (total 42 €/month). At 35W it doesn't make much of a difference for cooling, but there is no AC installed in my home anyway.
- 88 4y ago
  Does your ISP allow you to use their service to host a server? Most expressly prohibit it in their terms and conditions.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    I remember in 2005 or so, there were people that got letters from their ISP to stop hosting things, and blocking port 25 was common until about 5-10 years after that but then net neutrality became more of a topic. Haven't heard of any such trouble since then. There are also ISPs that expressly encourage it. Formerly I was with XS4ALL who encouraged it when I asked them on the phone (long time ago), nowadays their spiritual successor is Freedom Internet. I think the name says enough :)
wongarsu 4y ago
Their cost is 1/3rd more just for running the AC (your electricity use generates heat that has to get out). And savings from discounts probably get eaten up by the costs of redundancy, diesel backups etc.

Interesting that the colo electricity cost goes up that much, that’s a lot more expensive than what I will pay as a normal consumer, I’d have thought they’d get better discounts.

jo909 4y ago

I'd guess that they used to have very good discounted contracts but are not able to renew them anymore. The cost they charge also includes the cooling, so you could see it as for example 30c/kWh for power, 15c/kWh for cooling to compare it to a consumer contract. Maybe they have published their ratio of that split "on average" before.

tecleandor 4y ago

There's a more than probable markup for redundancy and management. Anyway, I believe industrial power billing is quite a trip (at least in Spain), and probably have a miriad of different prices depending on the hour of the day, and different guarantees of delivery compared to a regular user.

bombcar 4y ago
In many places if you as a business are willing to take intermittent power cuts (with varying warning times) you can get significant discounts.

kuboble 4y ago

I believe in EU household electricity is largely subsidized and the industry always paid more.

PinguTS 4y ago
Nope. Wrong. The economy of scale works also for electricity. We don't have subsidized electricity. The other way around we had additional premiums to pay for green energy. That got yanked and is now paid by the general taxes.
doikor 4y ago
In Finland it is the other way around. Household pays the full price with industry paying the same but get huge tax breaks. Basically residential and companies pay the same but are taxed very differently in a form that ends up with companies paying way less electricity taxes.
barney54 4y ago
It’s the other way around, at least in Germany. Households pay more than industry for electricity. https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_prices/ https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_price...
- kuboble 4y ago
  Well. I have to admit you're right. But it seems to not be universally true. In Poland I have found that price for companies can be 3x higher based on at least one source. C11 - the tariff for the companies seem to cost 1.6 PLN / kwH [1] G11 - the same tarrif for households seem to cost more like 0.4-0.5PLN / kwH [2] [1] https://www.energa.pl/mala-firma/umowy/prad-dla-firm.html https://www.energa.pl/mala-firma/umowy/prad-dla-firm.html [2] https://www.energa.pl/dom/umowy/taryfa.html https://www.energa.pl/dom/umowy/taryfa.html
  - ReadTheLicense 4y ago
    I'd guess this is because of price regulation, not subsidy.
    - kuboble 4y ago
      What's the difference?
      - ReadTheLicense 4y ago
        No money transfer from the state to the energy company.

lima 4y ago

In colos, the cost of electricity typically also pays for air conditioning since it's a perfect linear relationship - more power goes in, more AC needed to get the heat out. Plus some overhead costs (but with Hetzner, I'd assume they're minimal - they have razor thin margins).

lucb1e 4y ago

Colo costs are just insane compared to consumer prices. At home: 12 or 42 €/month (details¹), depending on whether I want gigabit upload or not. Advantages: - fast LAN speeds, - don't need to go anywhere to do hardware maintenance/replacement/additions, - low cost, - partially solar powered if you have solar panels, - don't need to make things fit in a rack (can be a raspberry pi, an old laptop, or whatever you like), - likely you have more space available, and you get to share that gigabit uplink if you pay for it for your server. Colocation: €128 / month (120 base price, 8 electricity in germany; if you want to fly to Finland for accessing your hardware, then electricity is half the price). Advantages: - redundant power supply, - maybe noise if you don't have a separate room for this stuff, - you can do this also if your home has poor internet. ¹ I pay €50/month for my internet connection regardless (I didn't buy a bigger bundle for the server), the server uses ~35W average which makes ~26 kWh/month which makes ~9 €/month. Though, I'd pay the base connection fee for electricity anyway so the added cost is even a bit lower. Rent is about €6 per m², but I have my stuff in between storage (above and below) so the column above those 1.5 m² is basically cut in three, coming out to about 3 €/month added cost. The added cost of hosting a server at home is about 12 euros per month. If I wanted to upgrade to gigabit symmetric internet, that would be an added 30 €/month (total 42 €/month). At 35W it doesn't make much of a difference for cooling, but there is no AC installed in my home anyway.

88 4y ago
Does your ISP allow you to use their service to host a server? Most expressly prohibit it in their terms and conditions.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  I remember in 2005 or so, there were people that got letters from their ISP to stop hosting things, and blocking port 25 was common until about 5-10 years after that but then net neutrality became more of a topic. Haven't heard of any such trouble since then. There are also ISPs that expressly encourage it. Formerly I was with XS4ALL who encouraged it when I asked them on the phone (long time ago), nowadays their spiritual successor is Freedom Internet. I think the name says enough :)

wongarsu 4y ago

Their cost is 1/3rd more just for running the AC (your electricity use generates heat that has to get out). And savings from discounts probably get eaten up by the costs of redundancy, diesel backups etc.