Mark Bramfitt - Utilities & IT

Greenpeace Evaluates Cloud Providers on "Cleanliness"

Greenpeace has published an updated report that attempts to evaluate the environmental "cred" of cloud service providers, and has certainly generated lots of press coverage (there was a fifteen second bit on the local news here in the Bay Area last night).

The report attempts to estimate the power footprint for the data centers of fifteen cloud service companies, and coupled with an evaluation of the power content provided by local utilities and whether they publicize and share energy efficiency practices, comes up with a letter grade for energy efficiency and greenhouse gas mitigation. Letter grades are also on offer for "energy transparency", infrastructure siting, and renewables and advocacy.

Both Data Center Dynamics and the New York Times have issued stories on the report, including reactions from some of the leading companies that were evaluated. DCD commentary runs to the defense of the operators; the NYT is straight up reporting so far.

I think I've got shots all around: for the report and for the cloud service companies, and even for DCD.

Let's start with the report. Greenpeace acknowledges that in quite a few cases it had to estimate the data center loads for the cloud providers, and in the case of Apple, they seem to be in a tit-for-tat about whether the estimates are reasonable. (Greenpeace says that Apple's data center in Maiden NC has a load of 100 MW; Apple says it is more like 20 MW but won't say exactly. I suspect Apple may be at 20 MW now, but is rapidly fitting out the DC to its eventual full-load capacity that has been widely assumed to be 100 MW.)

Instead of the arguments, I would urge the companies to divulge their data center loads or annual energy use, which in turn would earn them higher marks in the "energy transparency" category.

My serious quibble with the report is that it rates coal-fired and nuclear generation in the so-called "dirty category", which is indefensible in my view. You may not like nuclear for other reasons, but it doesn't emit greenhouse gases, so shouldn't be part of the evaluation. And natural-gas fired generation, while producing half the GHG emissions of coal, should certainly be a included. 

As to the cloud providers, it's past time to "come clean" about what they're up to. Searching for cheap power rates means you're going to get fossil-generated power - you make the decision, live with it. And while I applaud the (very) modest moves by some of the companies to explore on-site renewable generation like photovoltaics and biogas-fuelled fuel cells, we can all agree that these are rather more in the category of demonstration projects rather than meaningful mitigation programs.

Look, eBay and Google come out well in the report, in part because they acknowledge the impacts of their operations, and primarily because they're willing to pay more than lip service to real initiatives to reduce those impacts. 

As to Data Center Dynamics, or for that matter any data center industry group or analyst, state your criticisms of the report and your sugestions of how to analyse these issues more fairly. You have to give Greenpeace all due credit as one of the only organizations that is trying to do that.

Apples and Oranges (Demand and Energy) Strike Again for Solar at DCs

As always, interesting news from Data Center Dynamics revealing the extent of solar photovoltaic on-site generation by eBay, including a new installation at a data center in Utah.

First, you simply have to commend eBay for the scale of their commitment to on-site generation: the new installation brings them close to 1.5 MW of solar PV, with another 0.5 MW in fuel cell capacity. To which I say "hear hear".

But the reporting does get a bit sideways when it comes to the numbers. eBay states that their "renewable energy generation capacity is...11% of the company's total data center power demand" (emphases mine).

That's exactly how I'd write it if I wanted to extoll the virtues of the projects, but I'll join Amazon's James Hamilton, who took Apple to task for their solar generation claims, in spinning this quite a bit differently.

While fuel cells can produce power around the clock, we all know that PV arrays have a much more limited operating cycle. So the correct comparison, especially against a block load like data centers, would be on energy production, not demand.  I would expect that the amount of energy produced by eBay's solar and fuel cell plants equates to something like five or six percent of the energy used by their data centers.

I haven't been able to find out if the Bloom Energy fuel cells at eBays Silicon Valley campus are using natural gas from the local utility or landfill gas (they are near a landfill). If the former, the power can't be called renewable, and if the latter I wouldn't call it renewable either. (The gas from the landfill will decline unless you continue to expand the facility, and let's be real, calling it renewable would be a corruption of the term.)

Lastly, I find it very hard to believe that the solar plant in Utah will pay for itself in only four years, given prevailing power rates there. It's on the order of seven or more years in California (after accounting for subsidies) where power rates are far higher.

Again, all due credit to eBay for their investment and commitment - it truly warrants attention and commendation. But have your engineers check the attempts by publicists to spin the data: it diminishes your accomplishments.

 

 

DCD on Apple's North Carolina Data Center

Bit of news reported by Data Center Dynamics on Apple's Maiden, North Carolina data center - I take particular interest as I am doing some consulting work with the local electric utility, Duke Power.

The squib is all about Apple's plan to install almost five megawatts of fuel cell capacity at the center (mistakenly referred to in the opening paragraph of DCD's piece as "cogeneration", unless Apple plans to do something with the low grade heat from the plant).

It appears that Apple plans to sell the plant output to Duke, rather than to use it to offset the data center load. This isn't necessarily a surprise.

If you have a self-generation facility, it can be more lucrative to sign a power purchase deal with a utility rather than offsetting your own use when you carefully assess the economics. For example, the utility will likely charge you a standby service fee if you use the power in-house to cover the infrastructure needed to serve you should the generation plant go off-line.

There might also be power purchase subsidies in play, which make the arrangement more lucrative.

And finally, there is real value in choosing when to run your plant. It would appear that running around the clock would amortize your investment the quickest, but off-peak power rates may actually be cheaper than your cost to produce power, so running only in on- and partial-peak hours may be better.

All by way of saying that I'm sure Apple has analysed the economics that support the purported power sale arrangement.

Speaking At: ConEd Energy Efficiency Summit 2012

Well, not speaking so much as moderating a panel discussion...

ConEd has a great program planned for their 2012 Energy Efficiency Forum on May 1 in midtown, and I'll be on hand to moderate an afternoon session on deploying data center energy efficiency easures to capture capacity.

We have a crowded panel, with both vendors and end-users, so will likely fill up our forty-five minutes, but I will encourage our panelists to be available after the session to answer questions.

Really looking forward to supporting this event, and if you have facilities in New York City, you should think about attending!