Data Center Operators Double As Energy Brokers 35
mattOzan writes "When data centers first opened in the 1990s, the tenants paid for space to plug in their servers with a proviso that electricity would be available. As computing power has soared, so has the need for electricity, turning that relationship on its head: electrical capacity is often the central element of lease agreements, and space is secondary. While lease arrangements are often written in the language of real estate, they are essentially power deals. 'Since tenants on average tend to contract for around twice the power they need, Mr. Tazbaz said, those data centers can effectively charge double what they are paying for that power. Generally, the sale or resale of power is subject to a welter of regulations and price controls. For regulated utilities, the average "return on equity" — a rough parallel to profit margins — was 9.25 percent to 9.7 percent for 2010 through 2012.'"
Re:They are not selling only power... (Score:3, Interesting)
its often not so easy - they need the power because of modern inefficient programs running on supercomputers - your web app goes slow, just add a dozen more cores and a hundred gig of RAM, and then wonder why the cost of hosting is so high.
As a result, you can take your business elsewhere, but they'll be charging as much. That power is not cheap in the first place.
It is time to reduce the requirements of our programs, I understand that datacentres are 2nd only to the airline industry for co2 emissions.