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Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

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Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#41

Post by whamlastxmas »

orliesaurus wrote: post #38

I wonder why they went for Wind farms over anything on the sea or solar powered

Solar is more suited for 24 hour power, which Amazon needs. It also costs less than solar, but needs maintenance, but if you're vertical integrated like Amazon then having your own low cost maintenance team is probably not an issue.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#42

Post by whamlastxmas »

msisk6 wrote: post #28
johnm1019 wrote: post #3

Are these wind farms located near data centers and such use the power directly? Or do they dump into the grid and sell it as power then claim all their power usage is renewable because it is "offset"?

No, this is out in west Texas where wind is plentiful along with cheap land. Nearly all wind and solar farms inject energy into the grid just like any other generator. In an open energy market like ERCOT (where this wind farm is located) there's a market where energy is traded. If they inject "X" units of energy into the grid and pull out the same "X" units all is good. If not (the usual case since generation and dem…

I would like to take a moment to appreciate that we seemingly have a pretty open, fair, and working regulatory system to make this possible. I am sure it's not perfect, but that you can do this at all is pretty cool.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#44

Post by michaelt »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #7
johnm1019 wrote: post #3

Are these wind farms located near data centers and such use the power directly? Or do they dump into the grid and sell it as power then claim all their power usage is renewable because it is "offset"?

Is there a flaw in treating electricity as fungible in this case? What matters is the amount of carbon that would be produced without Amazon, vs. the amount produced including Amazon.

It impacts how interesting the article is.

If they were together there could be a tech angle - like how this was going to insulate their data centres from problems with the grid, or how they were going to shed load when the wind wasn't blowing, or something like that.

Otherwise it sounds like AWS and Amazon Wind Power could basically be two unrelated companies.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#45

Post by samsnelling »

imglorp wrote: post #23

Oilman T. Boone Pickens almost made a big investment in Texas wind in 2008. Could be he missed the boat. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pickens-plan-for-huge-wind-farm-...

Pickens Plan actually did invest in huge wind farms. Not sure about in Texas, but Oklahoma is littered with his windmills.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#46

Post by electricEmu »

imglorp wrote: post #23

Oilman T. Boone Pickens almost made a big investment in Texas wind in 2008. Could be he missed the boat. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pickens-plan-for-huge-wind-farm-...

Don't forget part of Pickens' Plan included water rights from West Texas to Dallas under those wind farms. If I remember correctly, there were some disagreements and TBP wasn't able to complete the water pipeline portion.

He didn't miss the boat. His master plan of connecting West Texas water to Dallas for marked up resale fell through.

https://gigaom.com/2008/06/20/t-boone-pickens-taps-water-win...

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#48

Post by new_hackers »

msisk6 wrote: post #28
johnm1019 wrote: post #3

Are these wind farms located near data centers and such use the power directly? Or do they dump into the grid and sell it as power then claim all their power usage is renewable because it is "offset"?

No, this is out in west Texas where wind is plentiful along with cheap land. Nearly all wind and solar farms inject energy into the grid just like any other generator. In an open energy market like ERCOT (where this wind farm is located) there's a market where energy is traded. If they inject "X" units of energy into the grid and pull out the same "X" units all is good. If not (the usual case since generation and dem…

yep and being a generator will probably give them direct access to this market. I'm wondering if turning some of the AWS computing power toward playing the energy market isn't some of the motivation here.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#50

Post by djhworld »

sandGorgon wrote: post #30
ch4s3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be more of a membership?

yearly reserved citizenship cost .... or spot citizenship (They can kick you out of the country any time when someone is willing to pay more taxes)

> yearly reserved citizenship cost

a.k.a Prime membership.

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