Intel Testing Solar Power For Data Centers 66
miller60 writes "Intel has installed solar panels at a New Mexico facility to test the potential for using photovoltaic solar power in data centers. Solar has proven impractical in data centers thus far for reasons of cost (too high) and capacity (too low). Intel will test the 10-KW solar array with data center containers and as supplemental power for summer capacity challenges, and says the project is a first step toward solar data centers. The project is housed at the New Mexico site of Intel's recent research in air side economizers in data center cooling."
Photovoltaics aren't yet up to breakeven... (Score:4, Informative)
... but solar thermal -> heat engine has, if the size is reasonably large.
Wind turbines ditto if large enough and the site has good winds. (For house-sized they're only past cost breakeven if you can save a few grand by not running grid power to a new rural site.)
Progress in photovoltaic design and energy storage systems may bring both solar and small wind past the competitive-with-grid crossover, perhaps in the next few years. Rises in grid power costs could do it, too.
Solar is starting to become promising (Score:5, Informative)
We're not a datacenter, just a development company. We had money left over last year that was either going to be taxed and some tax credits expired in december. So we needed to be reinvested into the business some how. We put in solar panels on the office roof that meets about 60 - 70% of our power needs. This has lowered our power bills by over half. That's freed up enough cash flow to pay for another developer. We viewed the investment as a sunk cost that freed up enough to hire an additional Jr. programmer that we were really needing.
Re:I'd think solar HVAC would come before PV. (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the summary specifically says that the new research is being done at the same place they recently tested thier non-AC cooling solutions, so this particular datacenter needs almost no cooling.
Re:Core 2 Duo Thermal is the answer (Score:3, Informative)
Why 'should' we be able to? You think the laws of physics work like they do in Star Trek where all you have to is wish hard enough?
Not to mention that what we are grabbing from deep underground is steam to drive turbines, not heat directly.