On site power generation changing the Utilities

WSJ reports on companies adding on site power generation is changing the Utilities behaviors.

Companies Unplug From the Electric Grid, Delivering a Jolt to Utilities

Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal

At Kroger’s food-distribution center in Compton, Calif., a tank system converts organic waste into biogas to produce electricity used by the facility

On a hill overlooking the Susquehanna River, two big wind turbines crank out electricity for Kroger Co.’s KR +2.19% Turkey Hill Dairy in rural Lancaster County, Pa., allowing it to save 25% on its power bill for the past two years.

Google and Apple are mentioned in the article and their servers in data centers.

Almost overnight, that niche market has gone decidedly mainstream. Six years ago,Google Inc. GOOG -0.19% attracted attention by installing big solar arrays atop its Silicon Valley complex in California. Other tech companies followed suit, worried about ensuring power supplies for energy-hungry server farms and achieving sustainability objectives.

Apple Inc. AAPL +1.14% now gets 16% of its electricity from solar panels and fuel cells that run on biogas. Apple’s data center in Maiden, N.C., makes all the power it consumes, a company spokeswoman said.

Google increases its Renewable Energy 73% which means? more data center capacity?

Google has a blog post on its adding more wind power.  Adding 240MW on top 330MW = 570MW of wind power.  Which means???  possibly Google is adding 73% data center capacity over the next year or so.  Why else would Google who is carbon neutral add another 240MW?  The new wind farm capacity comes on line by end of 2014.  

Another windy day in Texas: a new power purchase agreement

9/17/13 | 9:00:00 AM

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

As part of our quest to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, we’ve agreed to purchase the entire output of the 240 MW Happy Hereford wind farm outside of Amarillo, Texas. This agreement represents our fifth long-term agreement and our largest commitment yet; we’ve now contracted for more than 570 MW of wind energy, which is enough energy to power approximately 170,000 U.S. households.

The Happy Hereford wind farm, which is expected to start producing energy in late 2014, is being developed by Chermac Energy, a small, Native American-owned company based in Oklahoma. The wind farm will provide energy to the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the regional grid that serves our Mayes County, Okla. data center.

OMG, data center god is identified, clients include Apple, Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft - Scott Noteboom leaves Apple to start his own company

Digital Journal covers the press release Scott  Noteboom leaving Apple to be CEO of Litbit.  Scott has god-like powers serving Apple, Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft.

Noteboom will serve as founder and Chief Executive Officer, bringing to LitBit global experience of having led development and/or operations of many of the world's largest and most innovative data centers, which have served companies including: Apple, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft.

Noteboom can provide a 10x lower environmental impact.

Our goal is to enable the next billion users of digital technology to emerge with a 10x lower environmental impact than the first billion," said Noteboom.

Keep this date in mind.  It is the birth of Christ.  The enlightenment of Buddha.  A data center god has struck out on his own.

Note: the Litbit service looks like it is just for the emerging markets.  So, those of us in USA and Europe will find it difficult to see the data center powers demonstrated.

LitBit was created to bring next generation converged infrastructure technology into emerging markets that require cleaner environment, greater efficiency and lower economics.

Looks like Scott is in China according to his LinkedIn profile.

Scott NoteboomLast day at Apple, last Friday. Already attacking new gig in China by Sunday. No rest for the jet lagged :-)

Unplugging from the Cellular Network feels good

I am Iceland for this week and on the way over I decided to turn off the cellular data on my iPhone 5.  I am on AT&T so cellular coverage should be good.  What feels better though is not being a slave to my phone and having to check e-mail, text messages or phone calls.

One of the best things not being in a corporate e-mail environment is the amount of e-mail I get is magnitude less or more.  Direct e-mail to my greenm3.com e-mail address is about a dozen a day.  My business partners on another project where we have our own domain and e-mail we can see a month's worth of e-mail on one screen of gmail.  Aside from my family my phone rings 2-3 a week.  And, text messages again aside from family in general can go days or weeks with no messages until I head to a conference.

Ironically as little as I get e-mail, text, and phone calls it is still burden to get disturbed by random things.  So, just turning off the cellular data seemed worth a try.

Mobile is driving an always connected society.  To do quality work requires time to think and no distractions.

When I go back home I'll pick one day a week to just turn off the cell phone data when working from home.  The phone won't ring, text messages will be much less.  My family can still reach me with iMessage or just not on my office door.

I knew I would learn some interesting things on this trip to Iceland, but I didn't expect that unplugging from the cellular network would be one of them.

Give it a try. Turn off your cellular network.  

BTW, the cool thing is the iPhone 5 battery lasts a long long time with cellular turned off.

Iceland Hydropower plant Irafoss tour

Yesterday was geothermal, today is a hydropower tour.  One of the questions I asked the maintenance crew is how often they shut down.  Every year 3 days.  Every three years, for about a week.  Every 6, 9, and then 12 years the shut downs are longer.  With shut down being up to 6 weeks every 12 years.  The grid is highly available, but that doesn't mean there aren't maintenance events.

The facility had an access tunnel at the lowest level.  This photo came out nicely with 12800 ISO f/4 1/30.  No flash, just really big 12800 ISO.  Love my Canon 6D.

There is a crane to lift gear in the generator room.

Here are some of rigging and tools for the crane.

The above is the magnetizing of the coils.  Below are the generators.

Power is transmitted at 132kV and 220kV.

Here is a video of the water leaving the generators.  There is pressure in the discharge area to reduce the pressure differential from inlet to discharge.  One of the reasons for reducing the pressure change is too high a differential can create damaging resonances.