4 ms·

Why go the petrol route rather than invest in batteries + a huge solar array or wind farm? Are economies of scale not there yet for Amazon's data center power

Why go the petrol route rather than invest in batteries + a huge solar array or wind farm? Are economies of scale not there yet for Amazon's data center power requirements?

xfitm3 4y ago
Reliability trumps all else in datacenter workloads.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
singron 4y ago
These are just backup generators. Cheap to buy and own but not cheap to run. A sufficiently large pv/battery array would probably be huge.
- jonatron 4y ago
  The price of gas and electricity is so high that diesel looks relatively cheap.
metadat 4y ago
@ChuckNorris89 wrote: > huge solar array > Ireland Yeah, I figured there could be land mass availability issue.. maybe better to beam it from outer space or across the ocean from a different *-land? I love the idea of a self-sustaining data center, hopefully someday we'll crack it in real life.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Capacity factor is still 12% in ireland. 7% on a mostly clear week in mid winter. Your solar array has to be about 30x as big as the floor area to cover net daily energy on most days. Maybe down to 20x with bifacial modules and relying on grid or backup for a few hours a day during bad days in winter. Eyeballing some photos in the US, including the parking and setbacks you might be able to cover 10% of the power in winter or 15% year average In some areas you can probably put up a 3MW wind turbine or three. That would substantially lower the cost and size of storage. Max density for an entire area is only 10W/m^2 though so it's only another 4% assuming the available land looks like some random amazon datacenter I glanced at. Still, 15% ish net annual is a dent for doing the extremely energy intensive thing without expanding the land use (assuming it's a good wind site). I wonder if in some future where 70% efficient five junction panels are available whether it would make it easier to cool. You'd effectively be taking the sun heat and putting it inside so the outside would be cooler.
- fragmede 4y ago
  I love that idea. I bet Amazon could plunk one down somewhere sunny, like in Arizona, US if they wanted to.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
Think high level, and review in low level. Battery’s energy density is not nearly closed to fossil fuels. Question like this particular in a tech forum shows how much trouble we are in when actually dealing with environmental challenges.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
paxys 4y ago
Solar farms and batteries are a 5-10 year project. Diesel generators are for powering your data center tomorrow.
- hedora 4y ago
  Really? They're equally difficult for a homeowner to get installed.
padraic7a 4y ago
The data centres are being located in the built up East of the country, near Dublin the capital city. Land for solar farms would be expensive and to be honest I'm not sure if the sunshine here would make them viable. I don't know why data centres are nt being located in more remote regions of the small island, presumably there are network / technical reasons.
- fragmede 4y ago
  It's financial. Land gets cheaper the further away you go but the resources (like people) get more expensive the further away you go, so it's a balancing act. Some will be in the build up parts, and some will be in the remote regions. Take a look at Sweden, there's expensive DCs in Stockholm, but there are also remote DCs way up north in Luleå.
postalrat 4y ago
Honestly what would be better for the environment? A lot of batteries that rarely if ever get used but still need to be replaced? Or storing a bunch of fuel in a tank? The backup generator should rarely be used. The resources that went into the construction of the generator and tank is probably much less than would go into all those batteries.
- hedora 4y ago
  I'm sure you're correct, but I'd love to see numbers to back this up. The union of concerned scientists has done this for electric vehicles, which is really useful. I'd also like to see it for low-hour-usage stuff, like tractors, lawnmowers, chainsaws, etc. (Though, honestly, electric chainsaws are way, way better than medium sized gas ones, CO2 footprint be damned.)
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    The CO2 for the fuel is pretty easy to calculate. It's the 2-4kg or so per litre (depending on where it's sourced). We'll call the carbon footprint of a generator negligible as it's mostly Aluminum (20kg CO2e/kg new or 1kg/kg recycled and steel (2kg/kg), it's maybe 10kg/kW so max 200kg. It will be lost in our error for the dirty fuel source once we use 50kg or so of fuel. The carbon cost of keeping some fuel out of circulation is hard to quantify, and tanks are essentially free so I will call the capacity cost 0. ~3kg/kg for fuel is really convenient because when combined with ICE efficiency, it's about 1kg/kWh This https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufacturing-batteries https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac... says every kWh of NMC causes 2-16t of emissions. I'm sceptical this applies in 2022 given that $130 only buys 5t of coal, but we'll use it as indicative. So for our generator we have 200P + 4E + 0C where P, E and C are power, total energy used and hours of capacity respectively. If we assume 2C charge rate and 4000 cycle life, our battery is 2400 * max(P/2, C) + 2400/4000E So E = 600C + 6/40E Assuming P is small compared to C, then any capacity used less than ~550 times in the 8 or so years it lasts is better off as a generator. This is a function of the carbon intensity of battery though. At 200kg (https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/79316/2/Revised%20Manuscript%20%28clean%29.pdf https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/79316/2/Revi...) it's about 50.

Why go the petrol route rather than invest in batteries + a huge solar array or wind farm? Are economies of scale not there yet for Amazon's data center power requirements?

xfitm3 4y ago

Reliability trumps all else in datacenter workloads.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

singron 4y ago

These are just backup generators. Cheap to buy and own but not cheap to run. A sufficiently large pv/battery array would probably be huge.

jonatron 4y ago
The price of gas and electricity is so high that diesel looks relatively cheap.

metadat 4y ago

@ChuckNorris89 wrote: > huge solar array > Ireland Yeah, I figured there could be land mass availability issue.. maybe better to beam it from outer space or across the ocean from a different *-land? I love the idea of a self-sustaining data center, hopefully someday we'll crack it in real life.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Capacity factor is still 12% in ireland. 7% on a mostly clear week in mid winter. Your solar array has to be about 30x as big as the floor area to cover net daily energy on most days. Maybe down to 20x with bifacial modules and relying on grid or backup for a few hours a day during bad days in winter. Eyeballing some photos in the US, including the parking and setbacks you might be able to cover 10% of the power in winter or 15% year average In some areas you can probably put up a 3MW wind turbine or three. That would substantially lower the cost and size of storage. Max density for an entire area is only 10W/m^2 though so it's only another 4% assuming the available land looks like some random amazon datacenter I glanced at. Still, 15% ish net annual is a dent for doing the extremely energy intensive thing without expanding the land use (assuming it's a good wind site). I wonder if in some future where 70% efficient five junction panels are available whether it would make it easier to cool. You'd effectively be taking the sun heat and putting it inside so the outside would be cooler.
fragmede 4y ago
I love that idea. I bet Amazon could plunk one down somewhere sunny, like in Arizona, US if they wanted to.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

Think high level, and review in low level. Battery’s energy density is not nearly closed to fossil fuels. Question like this particular in a tech forum shows how much trouble we are in when actually dealing with environmental challenges.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

paxys 4y ago

Solar farms and batteries are a 5-10 year project. Diesel generators are for powering your data center tomorrow.

hedora 4y ago
Really? They're equally difficult for a homeowner to get installed.

padraic7a 4y ago

The data centres are being located in the built up East of the country, near Dublin the capital city. Land for solar farms would be expensive and to be honest I'm not sure if the sunshine here would make them viable. I don't know why data centres are nt being located in more remote regions of the small island, presumably there are network / technical reasons.

fragmede 4y ago
It's financial. Land gets cheaper the further away you go but the resources (like people) get more expensive the further away you go, so it's a balancing act. Some will be in the build up parts, and some will be in the remote regions. Take a look at Sweden, there's expensive DCs in Stockholm, but there are also remote DCs way up north in Luleå.

postalrat 4y ago

Honestly what would be better for the environment? A lot of batteries that rarely if ever get used but still need to be replaced? Or storing a bunch of fuel in a tank? The backup generator should rarely be used. The resources that went into the construction of the generator and tank is probably much less than would go into all those batteries.

hedora 4y ago
I'm sure you're correct, but I'd love to see numbers to back this up. The union of concerned scientists has done this for electric vehicles, which is really useful. I'd also like to see it for low-hour-usage stuff, like tractors, lawnmowers, chainsaws, etc. (Though, honestly, electric chainsaws are way, way better than medium sized gas ones, CO2 footprint be damned.)
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  The CO2 for the fuel is pretty easy to calculate. It's the 2-4kg or so per litre (depending on where it's sourced). We'll call the carbon footprint of a generator negligible as it's mostly Aluminum (20kg CO2e/kg new or 1kg/kg recycled and steel (2kg/kg), it's maybe 10kg/kW so max 200kg. It will be lost in our error for the dirty fuel source once we use 50kg or so of fuel. The carbon cost of keeping some fuel out of circulation is hard to quantify, and tanks are essentially free so I will call the capacity cost 0. ~3kg/kg for fuel is really convenient because when combined with ICE efficiency, it's about 1kg/kWh This https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufacturing-batteries https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac... says every kWh of NMC causes 2-16t of emissions. I'm sceptical this applies in 2022 given that $130 only buys 5t of coal, but we'll use it as indicative. So for our generator we have 200P + 4E + 0C where P, E and C are power, total energy used and hours of capacity respectively. If we assume 2C charge rate and 4000 cycle life, our battery is 2400 * max(P/2, C) + 2400/4000E So E = 600C + 6/40E Assuming P is small compared to C, then any capacity used less than ~550 times in the 8 or so years it lasts is better off as a generator. This is a function of the carbon intensity of battery though. At 200kg (https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/79316/2/Revised%20Manuscript%20%28clean%29.pdf https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/79316/2/Revi...) it's about 50.