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The capacity of the national grid (data centres)

Comments

  • #2
    bren2002
    Registered Users Posts: 1,198 ✭✭✭bren2002


    Wonder how much electric cars are predicted to layer on top


  • #3
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    This is kind of analogous to the "private v public transport" debate. Our digital society depends on connectivity to remote storage and processing facilities, ie data centres.

    20 years ago if you were launching an online service, like a corporate website or an online store selling whatever, (airline tickets, B&B bookings, books, CDs etc) you would probably have to build that infrastructure yourself. Stick up a couple of servers in a spare corner of office, rent a leased line for broadband and away you go. Each server would probably have had its own power supply, disk drive, fans etc etc.

    Just imagine if every company did that what the effect on our power grid would be!!

    Far better to outsource that function to a specialist company with virtualised servers, pooled storage resource and systematic building cooling, both for financial and environmental reasons.

    We're going to need more power, but we're going to need it anyway. Far better to have a few large data centres each consuming a reasonable amount of power than every tom dick and harry wiht their own mini data centre pumping out a far bigger aggregate.


  • #4
    TallGlass
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,935 ✭✭✭TallGlass


    DaCor wrote: »
    When you look at the eventual energy demand for Athenry being the same as all residential demand in the surrounding counties put together...... All this for a measly 150 jobs, correction, "up to 150" jobs

    It's up to 150 jobs, 150 jobs that could go elsewhere in the world. Let alone all the jobs that are indirect to the data center.

    It's 75% for now. Data Centers will continue to consume this much power but Google/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook are investing in ways to bring that power bill down. It won't always be that high.


  • #5
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Data centers are all about performance per watt and maximising it, as it getting the maximum amount of work done for each watt used. It is literally what the folks who run data canters obsess about all day, every day, how to improve efficiency, since power use is one of the highest costs of running a data center.

    I find it ironic that OP would complain about power used by a data center on the internet, which means I can guarantee that their post went through a data center just like this one. And every time they use their phone, it is using data centers just like this.


  • #6
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭[Deleted User]


    bk wrote: »

    I find it ironic that OP would complain about power used by a data center on the internet, which means I can guarantee that their post went through a data center just like this one. And every time they use their phone, it is using data centers just like this.

    :rolleyes:

    By that logic anyone who drives a car can't complain about road developments because they drive a car


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  • #7
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    DaCor wrote: »
    :rolleyes:

    By that logic anyone who drives a car can't complain about road developments because they drive a car

    It is the manner of the complaint. If the compliant was you didn't like it being built behind your house, fair enough. But complaining about the power they use is pretty silly. They are going to be built either way, either here in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe (to a certain extent they have to be geographically placed close to their users). So either way the same amount of power is going to be used.

    The nice thing about Ireland is that we are developing lots of wind power which can be used by these data centers. Apple is making a massive effort for it's office and data centers to be carbon neutral:

    https://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/03/21/apple-is-carbon-neutral-in-23-countries/


  • #8
    billbond4
    Registered Users Posts: 2,401 ✭✭✭billbond4


    I dont know fully the Irish Governments Renewable Enery plans, but I doubt they are anything like what the Norwagians are doing.
    https://data-economy.com/norway-lands-worlds-largest-data-centre-1000-mw-6-5-million-sqf/

    Also the quoted 850€million for the Apple Data Centre is made up mainly imported Apple servers, so no huge gain for the irish tax payer


  • #9
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    billbond4 wrote: »
    I dont know fully the Irish Governments Renewable Enery plans, but I doubt they are anything like what the Norwagians are doing.
    https://data-economy.com/norway-lands-worlds-largest-data-centre-1000-mw-6-5-million-sqf/

    Well Norway is already WAY ahead of us, nearly all their electricity is generated from hydro power, so super cheap and zero emissions. But that is due to their unique geography, Fjords are perfect for hydro power. So that is somewhat of an unfair comparison. We certainly have our challenges, our path to renewable energy will be quiet different from them. Thoguh hopefully we can partner with Norway with an interconnector, they would be a prefect backup to our wind power.
    billbond4 wrote: »
    Also the quoted 850€million for the Apple Data Centre is made up mainly imported Apple servers, so no huge gain for the irish tax payer

    The gain would be for the hundreds of people employed in it's construction and then the 150 highly skilled people (systems admins, network admins, etc.) who would be employed to run and maintain it.

    Obviously 850 million is a massive exaggeration, but if those 150 highly skilled jobs would be very welcome to this location.

    BTW Those servers would use Intel CPU's, many of which are made right here in Ireland and which make up one of the most expensive components of a server.


  • #10
    keane2097
    Registered Users Posts: 17,769 ✭✭✭✭keane2097


    Seems like a project like this and the potential for more of them would be a good way to encourage further investment/development of renewable energy infrastructure.


  • #11
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,523 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    billbond4 wrote: »

    Also the quoted 850€million for the Apple Data Centre is made up mainly imported Apple servers, so no huge gain for the irish tax payer

    1: Apple haven't built servers in years, at least for retail
    2: When they did, they were made in Cork!

    Cork is one of the only company owned factories they still have so if they do make their own servers it'll likely be there.


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  • #12
    TheChizler
    Registered Users Posts: 9,400 ✭✭✭TheChizler


    L1011 wrote: »
    Cork is one of the only company owned factories they still have so if they do make their own servers it'll likely be there.
    If they made them themselves then yeah, but not a chance of that happening unfortunately. Apple Cork is set up for last stage customisation of iMacs basically, they wouldn't have the facilities or capacity to build the 100s of 1000s of servers necessary without massive investment.


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