Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Green Hosting : On-Site Wind Generation or Solar?

[appliedops]

Who do people use for On-Site wind or solar co-generation?
I'm looking at some smaller units but I'm assuming there are some larger units around?

[davet]

Most all of the hosting companies you see offering green hosting don't actually produce their own power via wind or solar. Instead they purchase RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) to offset their carbon footprint which allows them to advertise they are "power by wind (or solar)".

[appliedops]

Originally Posted by davet

Most all of the hosting companies you see offering green hosting don't actually produce their own power via wind or solar.

Its fairly easy to produce at least a portion of the draw. I guess I'll keep researching and post back when I've got something installed

[Sam_101]

I guess Solar Heat generator will be much suitable, Wind generators are a bit hard to use and also they need heavy wind flow in order to produce required amount of power.

[The_Dominator]

Originally Posted by appliedops

Its fairly easy to produce at least a portion of the draw. I guess I'll keep researching and post back when I've got something installed

let us all know about it -- and how well it works out for you

[NoSupportLinuxHostin]

Green computing often just means the hosting company has taken steps to reduce how much power they use, and/or the hosting company is planting trees to offset the carbon used to power their equipment. Green hosting generally does not mean that solar or wind power is the primary power source. Even the biggest fans of wind and solar realize that those alternative power sources are not reliable enough to use to power servers.

[appliedops]

Originally Posted by NoSupportLinuxHostin

Even the biggest fans of wind and solar realize that those alternative power sources are not reliable enough to use to power servers.

Thats not entirely accurate, if you have enough battery and you do it right, its totally feasable.

[NoSupportLinuxHostin]

Yeah, I guess you could do it with enough battery. That could end up being quite a bit of battery power, though. If it was cloudy for several days and not very windy, you might need several days of battery power.

Most datacenters talk in terms of hours of battery power combined with days of generator power, and the generators are generally not environmentally friendly when they run. Switching to days of battery power would take quite an investment for large operations.

[Aussie Bob]

The way to go here would be to use your solar or wind to supplement your existing grid power supply. So you're still connected to the power grid, but you solar and wind supply taps into that too. So during the day when it's sunny, you're making power from your panels and that power is being used by your servers. If there's any excess power generated, that goes back out onto the grid. At night you pull power off the grid, so essentially the grid becomes your battery or storage.

I would stay away from wind, and go with solar. Solar is more efficient and has no moving parts that need maintenance. If you have access to a sizeable area of roof, then something like a 5kw on grid solar setup would supplement your power needs very nicely, depending on how much power you're pulling off the grid. So no need for batteries with your solar panels. Just use the grid. This method is much cheaper and much more efficient.

[igen]

Originally Posted by appliedops

Thats not entirely accurate, if you have enough battery and you do it right, its totally feasable.

The problem with battery there are not much technology improvements and I think there will be no new battery tech in near future.
And yes solar power is far more efficient (if the locations have enough sunlight). Not many locations have minimum req to generate enough wind power.

[Aussie Bob]

Originally Posted by appliedops

Thats not entirely accurate, if you have enough battery and you do it right, its totally feasable.

Forget about batteries, unless it's part of a large scale UPS or backup power setup. Use the power grid as your storage battery, with your solar panel setup. It's free and you can store unlimited power there, and you might even get paid more for the power you push onto the grid, than for the power you pull off the grid. That's called a feed in tariff. Our home solar system gets paid AUS$0.44/kwh for excess power we push back onto the grid, and we pay AUS$0.20/kwh for power we pull back off the grid.

[-OY-]

Aren't batteries more harmful or less green to our environment then CO2?

[Aussie Bob]

Originally Posted by -OY-

Aren't batteries more harmful or less green to our environment then CO2?

Yeah, if you can use solar panels without batteries as the storage, then this is more efficient. So if you have a power grid, use it as your storage.

[igen]

Originally Posted by Aussie Bob

Yeah, if you can use solar panels without batteries as the storage, then this is more efficient. So if you have a power grid, use it as your storage.

If so, I may say most of hosting provider which buy Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) have big contributions to pump in solar/winds generated power, they just not buy directly.

[portbridge]

Perhaps researching other companies that get their power from things like Geothermal power plants, Landfill power plants (Methane or the plasma arc that is being built in Port Saint Lucie Florida). Wind and solar is the the be all end all answer to everything green. We have a lot more resources to tap other than that. If you ask me, wet landfills that produce methane are a great place to start and for as long as we have trash we will have methane production in landfills to fire a power plant.

Iceland (or could be Greenland) gets the majority of their power from Geothermal, so that is about as green as it gets and from what I understand a lot of major server farms are moving there (because the cost of Geothermal is CHEAP there).

I agree on Photovoltaic cells with a DC/AC converter. You will produce what you need and if you have more you can install a meter that spins backwards (paying you back) so that that power is sent back out on the grid for others to use. Use the grid for now until we get this technology improved.