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Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

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Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#161

Post by aembleton »

d4nt wrote: post #158
luhn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~20% is residential—still significant. Plus ~30% transportation, which as we transition to EVs become more and more relevant to residential energy use. But even commercial and industrial could be optimized in the same manner. I've been thinking: If electricity is much cheaper during certain periods, would factories be built to only run during those times? https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/

This is already a thing, but it‘s only done at “enterprise scale”. Meaning account managers meet with energy purchasers at large manufacturing plants to negotiate “interruptible supply” contracts. The notice periods, levels and tariffs are all negotiated individually. “Pricing managers” on both sides of the negotiation spend a long time modelling the deals in Excel. If algorithms could replace the pricing managers th…

If you're in the UK, then Octopus Agile tariff gives you a variable price and an API with IFTTT integration so that you can switch devices on and off depending upon the current price: https://octopus.energy/agile/

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#162

Post by aembleton »

cm2187 wrote: post #157
205guy wrote: post #75

This is the future. Using algorithms to optimize usage of renewable energy. Not only will it be lower carbon, it will be cheaper. What's interesting is they describe it working on forecasts (for wind and sun) instead of instantaneous renewable production. I wonder what the rationale for that was? Basing the algorithm on instantaneous information should be more accurate and thus give better savings, but maybe it varie…

And stop the train when the wind is not blowing or it is cloudy.

The train can carry batteries that could also be charged through regenerative braking.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#164

Post by sgillen »

205guy wrote: post #75

This is the future. Using algorithms to optimize usage of renewable energy. Not only will it be lower carbon, it will be cheaper. What's interesting is they describe it working on forecasts (for wind and sun) instead of instantaneous renewable production. I wonder what the rationale for that was? Basing the algorithm on instantaneous information should be more accurate and thus give better savings, but maybe it varie…

>> What's interesting is they describe it working on forecasts (for wind and sun) instead of instantaneous renewable production. I wonder what the rationale for that was? Basing the algorithm on instantaneous information should be more accurate and thus give better savings

The article says they are “shifting the timing of our compute tasks”, so if they think that there will be cheap electricity later in the day (because it’s going to be especially windy or something) it would make sense for them to schedule some of their heavy compute tasks at that time, rather than right now.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#165

Post by OJFord »

aembleton wrote: post #161
d4nt wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already a thing, but it‘s only done at “enterprise scale”. Meaning account managers meet with energy purchasers at large manufacturing plants to negotiate “interruptible supply” contracts. The notice periods, levels and tariffs are all negotiated individually. “Pricing managers” on both sides of the negotiation spend a long time modelling the deals in Excel. If algorithms could replace the pricing managers th…

If you're in the UK, then Octopus Agile tariff gives you a variable price and an API with IFTTT integration so that you can switch devices on and off depending upon the current price: https://octopus.energy/agile/

That's really cool, for all the spam/ads I have seen about Octopus I've never seen this before, and this is the first time I'm interested. (Ordinarily I'm only interested in price, viewing it as a straightforward commodity, and Octopus has never been appealing on that ground.)

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#166

Post by bizzleDawg »

shadowgovt wrote: post #100
gbear605 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose I'm building a new datacenter that I want to do some constant amount of work each day. It doesn't matter the time of day. I can either power it with solar power, in which case it will run for 1/Y of the day, or with coal power, in which case it will run 100% of the day. If it only runs for 1/Y of the day, then I will need to buy Y times as many computers in the solar scenario than in the coal scenario. If Y =…

But again, that's the thing. There is only 1/Y work to do in the day; it's batch work. The work in this case is constrained on the input side, not the CPU resources side; building 1 or 2 or 1,000 nodes to do the work won't decrease how expensive it is to do the work (in fact, building more computers than you need will make it cost more!). ... so why does Google build more computers than they need? Keep in mind that a…

> Google's cost of manufacture is fixed.

That may well be the way you (and most likely Google) currently look at it, but the argument presented seems to be that everything other than where you run some batch tasks is all fixed.

Assuming everything else is fixed does make the optimisation easier, though surely nearly everything is up for debate if we're actually talking about minimising the overall footprint of a compute task?

Using fossil fuels rather than allowing these fixed costs you mention to sit idle - there is a point where your carbon/CPU cycle would actually go up by not using fossil fuels some of the time (though I am assuming less carbon emitted for a unit of power than manufacture cost).

I appreciate they are ever-expanding and predicting where non-movable workloads are going to need to be run etc etc, and I'm not suggesting there are easy answers.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#167

Post by phaemon »

lightgreen wrote: post #140
205guy wrote: post #75

This is the future. Using algorithms to optimize usage of renewable energy. Not only will it be lower carbon, it will be cheaper. What's interesting is they describe it working on forecasts (for wind and sun) instead of instantaneous renewable production. I wonder what the rationale for that was? Basing the algorithm on instantaneous information should be more accurate and thus give better savings, but maybe it varie…

The future is nuclear power, and when companies buy hardware they use it at max performance around the clock because energy is cheap and does not depend on weather. There’s huge lie (by omission) about renewables: nobody explained how to convert the world to 100% renewable energy without coal backup.

> There’s huge lie (by omission) about renewables

I live in Scotland. We now get around 90% of our electricity from renewables. We closed our last coal power station in 2016.

Perhaps you should consider checking your theories against reality before accusing others of lying?

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#168

Post by 4h53n »

ajuc wrote: post #160
dx034 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that with modern fridges energy consumption is already low enough that steering that through smart meters probably isn't worth the investment. Large companies could use that, esp with electric heating. But in residential areas, I think energy efficiency can still yield greater results.

There should just be a common protocol for all electical devices - heaters, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, computers, TVs, toasters - everything. Some devices might ignore it, but they should still have the data port and the microcontroller responding with "power regulation not supported". The state should regulate that like it regulates normal power sockets, it's a net benefit for everybody and the cost is minim…

I do agree with your overall suggestion, but it would be a mission impossible to change sockets. Indeed, technology for communication over power-lines are nothing new, and doesn't require a new socket/wiring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

A grid supply status, could empower next gen energy saving home appliances. This could be implemented as simple as pricing, the ultimate incentive. Price would fluctuate on the wire, just like it does for energy market.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#169

Post by ajuc »

4h53n wrote: post #168
ajuc wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should just be a common protocol for all electical devices - heaters, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, computers, TVs, toasters - everything. Some devices might ignore it, but they should still have the data port and the microcontroller responding with "power regulation not supported". The state should regulate that like it regulates normal power sockets, it's a net benefit for everybody and the cost is minim…

I do agree with your overall suggestion, but it would be a mission impossible to change sockets. Indeed, technology for communication over power-lines are nothing new, and doesn't require a new socket/wiring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication A grid supply status, could empower next gen energy saving home appliances. This could be implemented as simple as pricing, the ultimate incentive. Price wo…

> it would be a mission impossible to change sockets

Why? I lived through one such change in last 30 years (switching from 2-pole europlugs to CEE 7/7). They are backward-compatible, but so would be the usb+power plugs.

We also switched from 60 Hz 240V to 50Hz 230V some time in 00s (don't remember exacty, it was a non-event).

As for incentives new electronic devices should simply be reqired to have these plugs and microcontrollers, like now we require them to have fuses and certain wire gauge, etc.

Why depend on a hack when you can do it right?

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#170

Post by eisa01 »

saagarjha wrote: post #72
skummetmaelk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun fact: in 2018 the US produced 890,000 tons of Aluminium. Iceland (population ~350,000) produced 870,000 tons.

Is it Iceland’s insatiable desire to produce aluminum, or an abundance of geothermal energy?

It's hydropower ;)

Geothermal energy is mostly for district heating and hot water

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