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Looks like Bloom Energy is behind Apple’s massive fuel cell farm
Q&A: Baryonyx & Its Massive Wind-Powered Data Center Plan
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Facebook scores LEED gold for Oregon data center
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A green Hadoop could manage solar-powered data centers
Finally the worlds of big data geeks and clean energy nerds have collided. Researchers have proposed building a "GreenHadoop," that is a version of the MapReduce programming framework that could manage a data center's computing workload to optimize clean energy from a solar system.
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Amidst hard times for greentech, digital green startups emerge
Young, early-stage green-focused startups are a rare breed these days. The demo day on Wednesday in downtown San Francisco for the green digital-focused accelerator Greenstart (which I called theY-Combinator for greentech a year ago when they launched) was one of the first times in a long time that I’ve seen a grouping of new young green-leaning startups looking for their first round of funding.
At the event at the Greenstart offices, five startups focused on using software to change energy and transportation, showed off their ideas to a packed house of hundreds of investors, potential partners and the media. The startups seemed as excited to present their ideas as the investors were to hear their pitches.
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Apple’s fuel cells will be powered by landfills
We were wondering where Apple and Bloom Energy were planning on getting all that biogas to run the large fuel cell farm at Apple’s North Carolina data center. According to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Apple will get the biogas — which is methane from decomposing organic material — from landfills (hat tip Data Center Knowledge). Apple will actually use “Directed Biogas,” meaning that the biogas from the landfills will be cleaned and injected into the local natural gas pipeline, and the fuel cells won’t be directly running off of the biogas. But Apple’s biogas supplier will inject the equivalent amount of biogas that would be used by the 4.8 MW of fuel cells.
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Mentions: Apple Google Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
What you need to know about data centers & biogas
At first glance biogas — gas that is produced by the breakdown of organic matter — and data centers that are powering the world’s always-on websites don’t seem like a clear fit. The first is an industry in the U.S. in its infancy, and the second is undergoing a rapidly exploding construction boom. But an increasing number of Internet companies are experimenting with turning to biogas as an emerging source to power part of their data centers. Why? Well, for quite a few reasons.
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Mentions: Apple Greenpeace Google
Greenpeace slams Apple despite its clean power data center plans
Despite that Apple is building one of the largest privately-owned solar and fuel cell farms at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina, the environmentalists at Greenpeace say in a new report that Apple is one of a couple of Internet companies that are falling significantly short on sourcing clean power for data centers. Other Internet companies that drew weak marks from Greenpeace’s report include Amazon, and Microsoft. In contrast, Google, Yahoo and even Facebook drew praise from Greenpeace’s latest “How Clean Is Your Cloud,” report. The 50+ page report ranks over a dozen Internet companies on categories like how much they consider clean power when deciding the location of their data center, how transparent their clean power strategy is, and how much they are leading the industry through advocacy for clean power.
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Mentions: Apple Greenpeace Amazon.com
eBay covers Utah data center roof with solar panels
Internet e-commerce company eBay has covered the roof of its data center (called Topaz) in Utah with solar panels. The project is eBay’s largest solar installation to date at 665 kilowatts, which is slightly bigger than the solar installation at its headquarters in San Jose, and over 6 times the size of its solar panel project at its small data center in Denver. But yes, as Amazon’s web infrastructure guru James Hamilton pointed out recently, these types of solar panel installations at data centers are usually small enough that they only power a portion of the data center’s needs. According to this Data Center Knowledge post from 2010, the Topaz data center has a 30 MW substation nearby, and the first of the four phases of the data center consumed 7.2 MW. A 665 kW solar system could provide for about 2 percent of a 30 ...
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Mentions: Amazon.com Data Center Knowledge James Hamilton
Google to build its first thermal storage for a data center
Google has been more than creative when it comes to making its data centers more energy efficient and greener (seawater cooling and water recycling), and this week says it plans to implement a new energy efficient feature for a data center in Taiwan: thermal energy storage. Thermal energy storage systems commonly use chilled liquid or ice to act as a thermal battery, enabling a data center operator to run air conditioning at night (when rates are cheaper) and during the day pump the chilled liquid around the facility for cooling.
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Mentions: Google
Apple reveals more details about its fuel cell farm
Last month Apple unveiled that it plans to build both a massive fuel cell farm and a huge solar farm at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. Now, late last week, in a filing with the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Apple let loose a few more details about its fuel cell plans (hat tip Wired and the local News & Record). Apple says in the filing that it will install twenty four 200 kW fuel cells at an outdoor site next to its data center, and the fuel cells could start generating electricity, using biogas, as early as June 2012. Apple expects the entire 4.8 MW system to be online by November 30, 2012.
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Mentions: Apple Bloom Energy
Amazon’s cloud rockstar not a fan of solar-powered data centers
Amazon's web infrastructure rockstar James Hamilton writes on his blog that he's not convinced that solar power is a good fit for powering data centers. Using examples from Facebook and Apple he lays out a compelling arguement, but he's missing a few points.
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Mentions: Apple Amazon.com Google
Flush a toilet and cool Google’s data center
Google has turned to chilly outside air andeven seawater for greener ways to cool its data centers. But the search engine giant said on Thursday that it has now also tapped into recycled waste water to cool a data center in Douglas County, Georgia.
It’s the first time Google has used recycled waste water for a data center in the U.S. and the system was financed by Google and owned by the local water authority. In theory aDouglas County resident could flush a toilet and contribute to cooling the Google data center.
At the Georgia data center, Google built an evaporative cooling system, which uses both outside air and chilled sprayed water to cool servers. Google says in a blog post that this evaporative cooling process commonly uses “hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day.”
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Bloom exec: fuel cells could revolutionize data centers
Fuel cells could revolutionize data center power architecture — at least, according to Bloom Energy’s new data center guru, Peter Gross, who joined the company this week as the Vice President of Mission Critical Systems. Gross, who co-founded data center design firm EYP Mission Critical Facilities and sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2007, told me in an interview on Wednesday that Bloom Energy plans to sell its fuel cells to data center operators as both a replacement for backup power systems and grid power.
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Mentions: Apple Hewlett Packard At&T
Bloom Energy launches data center focus for its fuel cells
Silicon Valley fuel cell maker Bloom Energy has launched a new practice focused on data centers, the company announced on Wednesday. To lead the group, Bloom Energy has brought on Peter Gross, who co-founded and led data center design and operation firm EYP Mission Critical Facilities, which Hewlett-Packard bought in 2007. Recently, I reported that it looks like Bloom Energy is the fuel cell provider behind Apple’s planned 5-MW fuel-cell farm at its billion-dollar data center in Maiden, N.C. However, neither Bloom Energy nor Apple will confirm or deny that they are working together.
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Mentions: Apple Hewlett Packard NTT
Valley clean energy innovation can prosper, it just takes awhile
Two Silicon Valley-backed Bay Area companies appear to be the tech vendors behind Apple’s new sizable and pioneering clean power push at its massive data center in North Carolina. Last week it was revealed that solar panel maker SunPower will provide Apple with panels for a 20 MW solar farm, while I reported earlier this month that fuel cell maker Bloom Energy looks to be the vendor behind Apple’s 5 MW fuel cell farm. The significance of Apple opting to partner with two Valley-born clean power firms illustrates that the greentech venture ecosystem can work — it just takes quite a long time.
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Mentions: Apple Department of Energy Bloom Energy
Looks like Bloom Energy is behind Apple’s massive fuel cell farm
I’ve heard from a couple sources that fuel cell maker Bloom Energy is the supplier behind Apple’s planned massive 5 MW fuel cell farm to be built at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. However, neither Bloom Energy nor Apple would comment on any potential deal. I’ve also heard that Apple already has a few Bloom fuel cells running on its campus.
But it would make sense if Bloom is involved. Last month, Apple unveiled that it planned to build one of the largest fuel cell farms at its data center in North Carolina. The planned 5 MW fuel cell farm is supposed to run on biogas (methane from organic waste) when installed, according to Apple. Bloom’s fuel cells are large boxes that suck up oxygen on one side and fuel (natural gas or biogas) on the other to produce power. That means that with ...
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Mentions: Apple Adobe Bloom Energy
5 reasons why Apple is embracing clean power for its data center
Seemingly all of a sudden Apple is charging ahead with one of the most aggressive clean power projects for a data center in the U.S. Apple is planning on building a 20 MW solar farm and a 5 MW fuel cell farm at its massive data center in Maiden, North Carolina. Now the real question is why? I’ve been thinking about the logistics of combining data centers and clean power over the past few years, and here’s 5 reasons why I think Apple is embracing clean power right now:
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Mentions: Apple
Apple reveals big solar, fuel cell plans for data center
A few months ago it was revealed that Apple planned to build a solar array for its massive data center in North Carolina. Now according to Apple’s latest environmental report (hat tip CNET), the company has disclosed that its solar project will actually be pretty sizable at 20 MW, and it will be built on 100 acres, and will supply the company with 42 million kWh of solar power per year. Apple calls the 20 MW solar project “the nation’s largest end user–owned, onsite solar array.” There’s other much larger solar PV projects being built in the U.S. by solar developers, which sell the solar power to utilities, like the 500 MW Blythe solar PV project, the 550 MW Topaz solar project and the 230 MW Antelope Valley solar project. But in terms of corporate user-owned solar projects, Apple’s is a big one.
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Mentions: Apple Bloom Energy
Will clean power and microgrids be the future of data centers?
Will an idea to build a data center park powered by onsite clean energy and paired with a microgrid in Colorado, represent the future of data centers? Created by developer Craig Harrison, the Niobrara Data Center Energy Park is a proposal for a company or even the government to build one or more data centers on a one-square mile plot of land in Colorado’s Weld County.
Harrison says the site is unique in that a natural gas power plant could be built on it (a gas hub is a few miles away), and has a sunny climate that would enable an onsite solar panel farm. These local clean energy sources could be connected in a microgrid that could add uptime security for a data center, as well as reduce efficiency losses from transmission.
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The era of the 100 MW data center
The first phase of Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Oregon will have a capacity for 28 MW of power, points out Data Center Knowledge. That’s about the same amount of power used by all the homes and businesses in the rest of the Oregon county where the data center is located. And that’s just the first of three potential parts of Facebook’s data center in Oregon. When all three stages are built out the entire facility could have a whopping power capacity of 78 MW. Data centers are increasingly requiring energy capacity of close to 100 MW of power, which is the equivalent power for about 80,000 U.S. homes, says Greenpeace. While most Internet companies don’t disclose the details of their facilities’ energy consumption, Apple’s billion dollar data center in North Carolina is estimated to require 100 MW, according to Greenpeace. Google ...
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Mentions: Apple Greenpeace Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
GigaOM’s top 10 green stories of 2011
What stories dominated the green GigaOM clicks in 2011? This year was filled with smart thermostats, a dream of Apple getting into solar, the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the efficiency of cloud computing, Google’s green data centers and Tesla’s Model S.
So starting with #10 and running through to #1, here’s our top 10 green GigaOM stories of the year:
10). 25 battery breakthroughs for gadgets, electric cars & the grid: Innovation for batteries is struggling when compared to the progress of innovation in IT. Which is a big bummer because batteries are the pain point for mobile devices, wireless computing, and electric cars. These are 25 researchers and startups that are trying – hard!
9). Google to Switch on Seawater-Cooled Data Center This Fall: Google you so crazy. The search engine giant built a data center that is being cooled by the sea in Finland, and I reported that ...
(Read Full Article)
Mentions: Google
10 Things To Be Thankful For In Greentech This Year
As you sit down to your sustainably raised turkey (or Tofurky) dinner this year, it’s a good time to think about the things that have gone well for greentech in 2011. Yes, there have been a lot of clouds for the industry this year, with the Solyndra debacle and the overall recession, but there have been quite a few milestones this year. Here’s what I’m thankful about:
1. Cheap solar panels. The prices of solar panels and cells have dropped dramatically this year. That’s been difficult for solar makers trying to stay in business, but for solar consumers, that’s great news. According to a recent study from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, between 2009 to 2010 the price of residential rooftop solar panels fell 17 percent to $6.20 per watt, or a $1.30 decline, and in 2011 fell 70 cents per watt, or 11 ...
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Facebook scores LEED gold for Oregon data center
Facebook unveiled its green data center in Oregon this Spring, but now the social network giant has achieved another milestone: it's been granted a LEED gold certification for the Oregon data center, which uses 52 percent less energy to operate than a standard data center.
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Apple’s solar farm rumored to work with Leaf Solar
Apple rumor site AppleInsider says the solar farm Apple is planning to build next to its billion-dollar data center will be built with the help of a company called Leaf Solar Power based in Lake Worth, Fla. While the article focuses on how the company is a U.S.-based company and not a Chinese solar company, Leaf Solar Power looks like it’s mainly a solar project developer, so could potentially (and very likely) use Chinese-made solar panels for the solar farm, if the farm is using solar PV.
We just don’t have enough information about Apple’s solar project to know yet. Companies in the U.S. that want solar projects built on their campuses, or rooftops, or near factories, generally will work with a local solar project developer, which manages the construction of the farm, the financing and sourcing of the gear for the farm.
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Mentions: Apple
Facebook turns to solar for heat and power
Facebook plans to build a solar system on the rooftop of its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., from startup Cogenra Solar, that will generate both electricity and heat. The system will be built on the company’s fitness center and in addition to electricity, will provide heat for the showers and will displace 60 percent of the building’s natural gas needs.
Cogenra is a VC-backed Valley startup that has designed a hybrid solar system that uses both mirrors and solar cells to generate electricity and useful heat. The system uses a single-axis tracker, and relies on glass mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto silicon solar cells to produce electricity. In the same region where the cells reside is a fluid-containing tube that absorbs the heat produced from the process of electricity production.
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Mentions: Greenpeace Facebook
Facebook’s Swedish data center mostly powered by clean energy
Facebook has officially announced the data center that it’s building in the chilly climate of Lulea, in Northern Sweden, and it’s going to be powered “primarily from renewables.” Woot woot! No, not solar or wind but good old hydropower (water and dams), which is still the hands-down cheapest kind of clean power available.
Facebook says it chose Lulea because of the low-cost clean power prices and also because the cold climate can enable Facebook to use the environment to cool the data center, cutting out many of the power-hungry chillers that are commonly used to power data centers. Cooling gear can sometimes account for half of a traditional data center’s power needs.
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Mentions: Greenpeace Facebook
Apple building solar farm for data center
Apple has been laying plans for a solar farm next to its massive data center in Maiden, North Carolina, according to The Charlotte Observer. The solar project — dubbed Project Dolphin Solar Farm — will reportedly be built on 171 acres of land across the street from Apple’s planned $1 billion data center, which had the code name Project Dolphin, but is now being called iDataCenter, and will likely partly serve the Apple’s cloud-based service iCloud.
The report provides few details, and leaves us wondering about the size of the solar farm, the companies that will build the solar project, and how much Apple is spending on the project (or the price at which Apple is buying the clean electricity). Solar farms that have been built next to data centers in the past commonly are relatively small and can only power a small portion of data center’s power needs.
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Mentions: Apple Greenpeace Google
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