200W is the usual rule-of-thumb design standard. It is RARE to see actual utilization greater than 25% of that number.
Let's examine a high density installation. My interior space is 9' by 40' = 360 sq. ft.
I have 20 racks which are 40 U high. With three ft. in front cool side and 2 ft. in warm back with 42" depth for the racks.
Each server is running 400+ W
40 x 20 x 400 = 320,000W
Divide that by 360 sq. ft. = 888W per sq. ft. just for data. once you add in cooling... well that depends on your infrastructure, but you can't design with a 200W per sq. ft. "rule-of-thumb" any longer. That model is as old as the expression itself.
And you can bet Greenpeace will be breaking in, standing on the roof, and dancing about until the second the last percentage is fulfilled.
Apple was already planning this and I'll bet Greenpeace is going to try to take ALL of the credit for convincing Apple to do this, even Apple had already had these plans a LONG time ago. It just makes me wonder if Greenpeace conjures these stunts to get attention and to see if they can raise more money for their sometimes childish rants against Apple. Apple does what they can, when they can and that is all they can ask for.
I do have one confusion with the claim in the article, though. How can this result in 100% renewable electricity, unless there is some massive energy storage installation that is also being put in place to produce power during nighttime (or when the sun does not shine sufficiently)? The 5MW Bloom machine does not seem large enough?
The way most people do it is to get credit for excess power produced during the day. So if Apple needs 1,000 kwhr per hour all day, that's a daily usage of 24,000 kwhr. If their solar system produces 3,000 kwhr per hour for 8 hours a day, they produce enough energy to power the facility all day - even though some of the energy goes into the grid during the day and comes back out at night.
I'm not sure that's the way Apple is doing it, but it is likely.
Let's examine a high density installation. My interior space is 9' by 40' = 360 sq. ft.
I have 20 racks which are 40 U high. With three ft. in front cool side and 2 ft. in warm back with 42" depth for the racks.
Each server is running 400+ W
40 x 20 x 400 = 320,000W
Divide that by 360 sq. ft. = 888W per sq. ft. just for data. once you add in cooling... well that depends on your infrastructure, but you can't design with a 200W per sq. ft. "rule-of-thumb" any longer. That model is as old as the expression itself.
And, yet, Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center that is being powered by a 20 MW solar package. That's only 400 W / ft2 for the very worst case - and it's actually considerably less because of the above. A 20 MW system averaged out over 24 hours produces the equivalent of 7 MW average - or 140 W/ft2 for data, lights, AND cooling, etc.
I suspect that Apple knows what they're doing better than you do. And given the fact that you didn't know the difference between MW and MWhr in your earlier post, I'm even more inclined to believe Apple over you.
The way most people do it is to get credit for excess power produced during the day. So if Apple needs 1,000 kwhr per hour all day, that's a daily usage of 24,000 kwhr. If their solar system produces 3,000 kwhr per hour for 8 hours a day, they produce enough energy to power the facility all day - even though some of the energy goes into the grid during the day and comes back out at night.
I'm not sure that's the way Apple is doing it, but it is likely.
And, yet, Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center that is being powered by a 20 MW solar package. That's only 400 W / ft2 for the very worst case - and it's actually considerably less because of the above. A 20 MW system averaged out over 24 hours produces the equivalent of 7 MW average - or 140 W/ft2 for data, lights, AND cooling, etc.
I suspect that Apple knows what they're doing better than you do. And given the fact that you didn't know the difference between MW and MWhr in your earlier post, I'm even more inclined to believe Apple over you.
If Apple could harness the biogas generated from the bullshit on AI they could easily power the entire data center with renewable energy.
8.4 Megawatts is a lot of power but not with respect to a datacenter. A modern datacenter needs to support around 1000 watts per sq. ft. just for data not including the cooling infrastructure. So at 500,000 sq. ft. that just covers the minimum. Of course many sites have N+2 which means you need three times that. Sure they will have the regular power grid as a backup but I have not read the capacity of their substation, so it may be 20 MW or more but I don't see it in that photo. A substation usually takes up more than 2 acres. But they have also indicated that they intend to increase the size of the datacenter to a million sq. ft. as I recall. So more power will be needed in the future.
It's nice to see the lack of knowledge in Scientific writing when AI calls its 84 million kilowatt hours instead of the expected, 84 GWh notation, seeing as we are talking about 84 Gigawatt hours.
Greenpeace's media representative has just advised that 100 percent renewable energy is not enough, and that they will continue to harass Apple until they achieve 200%.
You just wait - "200%" efficiency will be achieved according to Greenpeace by supplying the power to surrounding homes and businesses and infrastructure equal to your data center. So Apple will not be a "responsible" corporate citizen unless the power plant for the data center also displaces non-renwaable sources beyond what Apple uses directly.
If Apple could harness the biogas generated from the bullshit on AI they could easily power the entire data center with renewable energy.
With you being one of the main suppliers. With snore-man gone, I see you're picking up the slack. Nice job.
Did you ever figure out the difference between the reported 84 M kwhr and the 8.4 Mw that you claimed? Clearly, you are not knowledgable enough in the technology to be discussing it.
Furthermore, please explain how it is that you are so convinced that Apple's numbers are all wrong and they need so much more energy than Apple thinks it needs - and how you could possibly know more about it than Apple.
Let's examine a high density installation. My interior space is 9' by 40' = 360 sq. ft.
I have 20 racks which are 40 U high. With three ft. in front cool side and 2 ft. in warm back with 42" depth for the racks.
Each server is running 400+ W
40 x 20 x 400 = 320,000W
Divide that by 360 sq. ft. = 888W per sq. ft. just for data. once you add in cooling... well that depends on your infrastructure, but you can't design with a 200W per sq. ft. "rule-of-thumb" any longer. That model is as old as the expression itself.
How many 100,000 sq ft centers have you designed? How many millions of sq ft in total?
There is a long laundry list of things you aren't accounting for when putting together a Tier 3 or 4 facility.
What you said is really no different than:
My toaster uses 1500W and takes up 1 sq ft. Since my house is 2500 sq ft, my house requires 3,750,000 watts.
(Edited to change "million sq ft centers" to "many millions of sq ft in total")
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow349
200W is the usual rule-of-thumb design standard. It is RARE to see actual utilization greater than 25% of that number.
Let's examine a high density installation. My interior space is 9' by 40' = 360 sq. ft.
I have 20 racks which are 40 U high. With three ft. in front cool side and 2 ft. in warm back with 42" depth for the racks.
Each server is running 400+ W
40 x 20 x 400 = 320,000W
Divide that by 360 sq. ft. = 888W per sq. ft. just for data. once you add in cooling... well that depends on your infrastructure, but you can't design with a 200W per sq. ft. "rule-of-thumb" any longer. That model is as old as the expression itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
And you can bet Greenpeace will be breaking in, standing on the roof, and dancing about until the second the last percentage is fulfilled.
Apple was already planning this and I'll bet Greenpeace is going to try to take ALL of the credit for convincing Apple to do this, even Apple had already had these plans a LONG time ago. It just makes me wonder if Greenpeace conjures these stunts to get attention and to see if they can raise more money for their sometimes childish rants against Apple. Apple does what they can, when they can and that is all they can ask for.
The way most people do it is to get credit for excess power produced during the day. So if Apple needs 1,000 kwhr per hour all day, that's a daily usage of 24,000 kwhr. If their solar system produces 3,000 kwhr per hour for 8 hours a day, they produce enough energy to power the facility all day - even though some of the energy goes into the grid during the day and comes back out at night.
I'm not sure that's the way Apple is doing it, but it is likely.
And, yet, Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center that is being powered by a 20 MW solar package. That's only 400 W / ft2 for the very worst case - and it's actually considerably less because of the above. A 20 MW system averaged out over 24 hours produces the equivalent of 7 MW average - or 140 W/ft2 for data, lights, AND cooling, etc.
I suspect that Apple knows what they're doing better than you do. And given the fact that you didn't know the difference between MW and MWhr in your earlier post, I'm even more inclined to believe Apple over you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
And you can bet Greenpeace will be breaking in, standing on the roof, and dancing about until the second the last percentage is fulfilled.
At that point, they'll complain about the solar panels harming the earthworms by blocking their traditional burrowing routes.
Greenpeace should get bent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
The way most people do it is to get credit for excess power produced during the day. So if Apple needs 1,000 kwhr per hour all day, that's a daily usage of 24,000 kwhr. If their solar system produces 3,000 kwhr per hour for 8 hours a day, they produce enough energy to power the facility all day - even though some of the energy goes into the grid during the day and comes back out at night.
I'm not sure that's the way Apple is doing it, but it is likely.
And, yet, Apple built a 500,000 square foot data center that is being powered by a 20 MW solar package. That's only 400 W / ft2 for the very worst case - and it's actually considerably less because of the above. A 20 MW system averaged out over 24 hours produces the equivalent of 7 MW average - or 140 W/ft2 for data, lights, AND cooling, etc.
I suspect that Apple knows what they're doing better than you do. And given the fact that you didn't know the difference between MW and MWhr in your earlier post, I'm even more inclined to believe Apple over you.
If Apple could harness the biogas generated from the bullshit on AI they could easily power the entire data center with renewable energy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
8.4 Megawatts is a lot of power but not with respect to a datacenter. A modern datacenter needs to support around 1000 watts per sq. ft. just for data not including the cooling infrastructure. So at 500,000 sq. ft. that just covers the minimum. Of course many sites have N+2 which means you need three times that. Sure they will have the regular power grid as a backup but I have not read the capacity of their substation, so it may be 20 MW or more but I don't see it in that photo. A substation usually takes up more than 2 acres. But they have also indicated that they intend to increase the size of the datacenter to a million sq. ft. as I recall. So more power will be needed in the future.
It's nice to see the lack of knowledge in Scientific writing when AI calls its 84 million kilowatt hours instead of the expected, 84 GWh notation, seeing as we are talking about 84 Gigawatt hours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
Greenpeace's media representative has just advised that 100 percent renewable energy is not enough, and that they will continue to harass Apple until they achieve 200%.
You just wait - "200%" efficiency will be achieved according to Greenpeace by supplying the power to surrounding homes and businesses and infrastructure equal to your data center. So Apple will not be a "responsible" corporate citizen unless the power plant for the data center also displaces non-renwaable sources beyond what Apple uses directly.
With you being one of the main suppliers. With snore-man gone, I see you're picking up the slack. Nice job.
Did you ever figure out the difference between the reported 84 M kwhr and the 8.4 Mw that you claimed? Clearly, you are not knowledgable enough in the technology to be discussing it.
Furthermore, please explain how it is that you are so convinced that Apple's numbers are all wrong and they need so much more energy than Apple thinks it needs - and how you could possibly know more about it than Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Let's examine a high density installation. My interior space is 9' by 40' = 360 sq. ft.
I have 20 racks which are 40 U high. With three ft. in front cool side and 2 ft. in warm back with 42" depth for the racks.
Each server is running 400+ W
40 x 20 x 400 = 320,000W
Divide that by 360 sq. ft. = 888W per sq. ft. just for data. once you add in cooling... well that depends on your infrastructure, but you can't design with a 200W per sq. ft. "rule-of-thumb" any longer. That model is as old as the expression itself.
How many 100,000 sq ft centers have you designed? How many millions of sq ft in total?
There is a long laundry list of things you aren't accounting for when putting together a Tier 3 or 4 facility.
What you said is really no different than:
My toaster uses 1500W and takes up 1 sq ft. Since my house is 2500 sq ft, my house requires 3,750,000 watts.
(Edited to change "million sq ft centers" to "many millions of sq ft in total")
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
It what sense in the Sun "renewable?" It will just burn for a fixed amount of time.
Huh? It goes away every night and then renews in the morning. At least in NY it seems...
Sometimes you need the "crazies" to make things mainstream. 100% renewable energy is no hippie dream, it's here, it's now, it's hip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
It what sense in the Sun "renewable?" It will just burn for a fixed amount of time.
Haha, you can bet the moronic deniers will use this argument to keep pushing us coal and oil.