UPS Avoids the EBay Mistake, Being Fined for Air Pollution from Diesel Generators in their Green Data Center

Many of you have read the SearchDataCenter article about United Parcel Service’s Green Data Center efforts.  The interesting part behind the scenes is UPS runs its diesel generators frequently and stays in compliance with local emissions standards.  A $79,200 mistake eBay made.

Given Georgia’s water shortage jeopardizing nuclear power plant operations, a reliable power supply seems an issue.  Digging a little deeper, I found it interesting that CARMA.org has UPS listed as a power plant.  Then I found this article in Diesel Progress with details on how UPS installed an Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system to allow to meet the Georgia EPA emissions standards, and run the diesel generators when spot demand power prices go above 7 cents/kWh.

Parrino said Windward uses the generator sets during a total loss of utility power, during brownouts/voltage swells or grid instabilities, during power switching activities from other users on the nearby grid, during maintenance or troubleshooting by Georgia Power, as well as peak shaving when the cost of electricity exceeds 7 cents/kWh.

Windward developed a program that would put the facility in compliance with the clean air requirements, and allow it to obtain a new air permit that provides the facility the flexibility to run its generators in the ways best suited to the data center a any time of the year, as well as to not degrade engine performance.

But, there is now a bureaucratic overhead for UPS as a power plant.

As easy as it was to obtain the approval from GA-EPD, complying with the quarterly air permit reporting requirements was painstakingly difficult, the project team members said. Windward’s air permit had many requirements scattered throughout that had to be compiled into a simplified format.

Examples of this are minute-by-minute logging of the urea injection rates, then obtaining 60 minute averages for each gen-set. With six gen-sets logging an average of 130 hours of runtime annually, the database becomes very bulky in a short amount of time. Other reporting requirements include cumulative run-hours on the first of every month. From the cumulative run-hours, the monthly run-hours are then computed.

If I was UPS I would consider installing the power generation software solution from OSIsoft.  Pat Kennedy, OSIsoft’s CEO also pointed out that if you were in San Diego you could turn on your generators before a blackout, but if you were in SF you would have to wait for the blackout before switching on your backup generators.

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NYTimes CIO talks co-gen in their new building

 

1:20 into this NYTimes video the NYTimes CIO, David Thurm talks about the co-generation capability they added to their latest building, providing up to 40 percent of its electricity as well as heating for the building and cooling for the data center. It's not mentioned in the video, but this must be part of their power backup for their data center and critical operations.  The building is promoted as green, but it is not LEED certified.

 

 

if you are curious about architecture and office building innovation you can view this video as well.

 

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How Microsoft is Going Green Article

NetworkWorld does a good job of summarizing Microsoft's Going Green status.  The article is 4 pages long on the web site, and here are some highlights for interest in green data centers.

Microsoft also is committing billions of dollars for new data centers around the globe that, although they use a lot of energy, incorporate cutting-edge power efficiencies. New facilities are planned for Ireland and Russia's Siberia region, and ground was broken in 2007 for another in San Antonio, Texas.

The company, which will say only that it has between 10 and 100 data centers, has used software to create a map of the world that aggregates 35 factors, such as power costs and climate, to determine the best places to build. The map is a living artifact that changes with world affairs, utility prices and other events.

The showcase, however, may be in Northlake, Ill., a 430,762 sq.-ft. energy-efficient building the company will move into in April 2008. It was built by Ascent to house multiple tenants, but Microsoft will lease the entire building to support data-center operations for Windows Live, Hotmail, and MSN Video.

While Microsoft will install its own green design inside the building, the structure itself has unique qualities.

"I think the real story with the building is the size and scale, the proximity to transmission-grade power, the dedicated onsite substation and the outside air-cooling efficiency. That is where the real sizzle is," says Phil Horstmann, founder and CEO of Ascent, which has been building and operating data centers since 1998.

The building sits on 12 acres and connects to the power grid at 138,000 volts, which is about eight times higher than typical connection voltage, Horstmann says. The connection provides a very efficient power supply and makes the building one of the most powerful data-center developments in the United States, he says. He would not reveal construction costs for the building.

For the inside of its data centers, Microsoft has come up with a set of design classes for energy efficiency and created standards around such things as server and rack configurations.

"It is really about how we take these designs and how they fit into the local area," says Mike Manos, senior director of data-center services for Microsoft. "Which design is going to give you the biggest impact, the most servers, the most efficient power with the most sustainability."

And, here are comments on Power Management in the Windows OS.

Vista's default settings for power management are far more aggressive than those in previous versions, and sleep mode happens much more quickly, Microsoft's Bernard says.

Power management extends to servers in Windows Server 2008, which will support a virtualization technology called Hyper-V that allows consolidation of servers to improve CPU use and provide real-time capacity management.

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T-Mobile Data Center joins Central Washington Neighborhood Microsoft, Yahoo, Intuit, ask.com

Sabey has found a primary tenant for its new data center in Eastern Washington. 

The primary T-Mobile' data center in Bothell, Washington was flooded last month when torrential rains hit the Seattle area. The outage knocked the T-mobile website offline and disrupted new customer activations nationwide. Bothell is more vulnerable to flooding than other data center hubs in the Seattle area. East Wenatchee is in an area of central Washington that has seen a boom in data centers since 2006, when Microsoft announced a major new facility in Quincy to support its new online services.

Wenatchee World gives details on the site and timing.

Talking to a technology executive who was born in Wenatchee and is familiar with the local economy.  He says that past gov't officials had made the decision to invest funds to put in extensive fiber network, including Fiber to the Home.  On page 13 of this pdf you can see where Quincy, WA and Wenatchee, WA are listed as 2 of 7 areas with Fiber to the Home.  This infrastructure coincidentally is good for data center locations along with low cost of hydroelectric power.  Unfortunately, for the local gov't officials who drove this project they were a little ahead of their time and their constituents expected immediate results as they were voted out of office.  Well, the next gov't officials are reaping those rewards as Microsoft discovered how Quincy is a top location for a green data center with excellent Internet connectivity.  Yahoo soon followed along with Intuit, Ask.com to the same area.

So far, this has turned out to have billions of economic construction impact to the area and given the range of companies there is a diversification beyond Microsoft's initial construction.  Mike Manos gives an interview on his data center construction on Channel 10.

So far I haven't run into similar stories about how Google has impacted the local economy as Microsoft has done in Quincy.  Has any one seen anything about the broader economic impact of Google arriving to a local area?

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Green Energy Storage maker gets $15 million

News.com sites Venture Wire that Deeya received a second round of financing for $15 Million.  What is Deeya Energy?  Their web site has banner ads for temperature insensitive, highly scalable, eco friendlfy, economical, energy storage 2Kw  to 2Mw (2 to 24 hours), fast charging, UPS, inverter systems, 7 year battery life

Deeya Energy is a clean technology start-up developing and manufacturing electrochemical energy storage systems based on its proprietary L-Cell technology. Deeya L-Cells have much better charging and discharging performance while being much cheaper than other batteries. Besides, the L-Cells contain environmentally benign materials and are infinitely recyclable, as opposed to the kinds of materials used in other batteries, such as lead-acid.

"We are really excited about the broad opportunities that Deeya's technology can address, including peak-off-peak Load Shifting, renewable backup for the global solar and wind rollouts and the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) market, particularly for developing regions like India where power availability and quality are significant issues," said Raj Atluru, Managing Director, DFJ.

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