Data Center Goes Off the Grid
By ryan | October 9, 2007
I read this article today and its definately pretty cool. A small server-farm company called AISO.net (Affordable Internet Services Online) has gone completely off the grid and is powering their company with ground mounted Solar panels.
Data centers are vital to the economy; just about any aspect of business deals with storing data electronically nowadays. These same centers also draw huge amounts of energy running day and night, keeping productivity going even when the rest of us are sleeping. According to the Environmental Protection Agency,
If their numbers keep growing at the expected rate, the US alone will need nearly a dozen new power plants by 2011 just to keep the data flowing.
The company has flanked its 2,000 sq. ft. building with two banks of ground mounted solar panels which generate 12 kilowatts of electricity. Batteries store the juice for nighttime operation. The cooling system only runs for about 10 minutes an hour and when the outside temperature drops to 60 degrees at night, air is sucked into the building to cool the servers.
The company also switched from 120 individual servers to 4 new IBM blades running virtualization software that let one computer do the work of multiple ones.
The conversion cost about $100,000 dollars, which I think is a small price considering the electric bill that was once a high of $3,000 a month to zero now.
There is growing demand in the global economy for energy efficiency, and this is just one more example of how successful it can be.
Check out the full story.
Topics: Energy, Technology |