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Why does it matter that your data center uses green energy? The "green" is in the production not the consumption. Had your center instead used a chunk of elec
by chvid 12y ago
Why does it matter that your data center uses green energy?
The "green" is in the production not the consumption.
Had your center instead used a chunk of electricity from a coal plant, the windmill produced electricity instead would be consumed by someone else in the energy network leaving the environmental impact the same.
Had Apple instead sponsored a new windmill farm - then it would have been different.
- Brakenshire 12y ago> The "green" is in the production not the consumption. Well, electricity production generally has to be close to consumption. So if you can move a serious part of consumption to somewhere where renewable energy is plentiful, that's great and a clear net benefit.
- calvin_c 12y agoIt creates a higher demand for green energy production.
- chvid 12y agoAre they paying extra for the green energy? Or how does it work? I meant it as a serious question (I can see it gets downvoted - for some reason?).
- Cthulhu_ 12y agoA while ago, as a consumer, you could get 'green energy' for a small extra fee. This was compensated again with government grants, so that 'green' energy was the same price as 'gray' energy; the government-funded surplus was then used (in theory) by the power company to build wind farms and whatnot.
- _delirium 12y agoThis is still the case in some markets, e.g. in Texas's partially deregulated electric market. Consumers can sign up with any of 20 or so electric providers, some of whom provide "100% green electricity", usually for a price a bit higher than the cheapest providers.
- smackfu 12y agoUsually, the energy company is already producing both energy by both renewable and non-renewable means. You can pay them to say that your energy is only coming out of the renewable side. This does not really affect anything in the actual energy production, it is just bookkeeping. It's still fed into the same power grid. The only real way it affects the energy production is if the demand for renewable gets high enough that it exceeds the actual renewable production.
- chvid 12y agoExactly. I wondered if something special happened when a big company like Apple bought 100% wind energy. They could be paying above market price as you could do at some point if you were a simple private consumer. But more likely they are paying less.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago> The only real way it affects the energy production is if the demand for renewable gets high enough that it exceeds the actual renewable production. And the only way this happens is: 1) Government regulation mandating a certain percent of energy is generated from renewables or 2) Enough consumers demand (through purchase agreements like this) renewable energy. Apple is most definitely helping renewables in this way, and writing it off as "bookkeeping" is disingenuous.
- legulere 12y agoFrom the link: > The facility is also designed to capture excess heat from equipment inside the facility and conduct it into the district heating system to help warm homes in the neighboring community. Geography matters, as you can place your data centers where cooling is efficient and where there is lots of renewable energy available/possible to be harvested. Also, a minor nitpick: please don't say windmill, wind power plants don't mill anything.
- PMan74 12y ago> Also, a minor nitpick: please don't say windmill, wind power plants don't mill anything. Ha, I'm adding that to my list of pedantic points, never thought of it that way.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]