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The economics of this do not work. A house typically gets residential electrical service, ranging from 10-18¢/kWh in most of the country. A server farm or dat
by mchannon 13y ago
The economics of this do not work.
A house typically gets residential electrical service, ranging from 10-18¢/kWh in most of the country.
A server farm or datacenter typically gets general or industrial electrical service, at a savings of >5¢/kWh off the residential rate.
So, either you compensate the homeowner for the extra power cost (why?) or expect them to eat at least part of the cost.
This service would need some of the following to happen in order to be justifiable:
•A specific reason to have a server in a specific town (perhaps as a data collection or distribution center)
•Lack of suitable space and reliable power in an area, making residential or remote the only option
•A residential client capable of taking on general or industrial power rates (some apartment complexes or buildings might)
•Ridiculously low power costs and a constant need for low-grade heat (eastern Iceland perhaps?)
- maxander 13y agoAccording to the site, they pay the homeowner the entire cost of powering the server. They claim to save "60% of TOC" for not having to buy a dedicated datacenter building and cooling system, which sounds reasonable in the short term (although, eventually a datacenter-builder will recoup the costs of construction, while an electricity premium is constant.) It looks like homeowner also pays Nerdalize to sign on- which may make their balance sheet more reasonable, but is also only a short-term advantage if the server is leased indefinitely. In the long-run, they're probably just banking on people paying a modest premium for "green computation."