Comment on As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act
PagPag@lemmy.world 16 hours agoWhen’s the last time you looked into this?
I just went fully off grid and I have a relatively large house and workshop.
The panels I used, which are great but aren’t the absolute best on the market come out to about 231W per sq. meter.
I have a 39kW system installed just for my house. It’s overkill, yeah but I plan for the future (telling the regional power monopoly to go fuck themselves for the next 30 years).
Covering one of these centers with solar would absolutely make a huge impact. Not only by providing power during the day but also with keeping the building cooler.
For reference, the panels I have (65 of), coupled with 100kWh battery bank.
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
Even at over double the other guys estimate on power per area, it isn’t even touching the requirements of major data centres. What it takes to run a normal house is tiny, they likely have servers that individually draw more power than my entire household, and they have hundreds if not thousands of these servers.
Do it anyway because solar is the closest thing to free power we have, but it isn’t gonna cover the building.
PagPag@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Well of course. Which is why I mentioned it making a significant impact. Full offset wouldn’t be feasible without it being as large of a scope a the data center construction itself; not even considering storage requirements.
The unfortunate likelihood of projections (currently taking shape) being well understood, and accepted, at the time is extremely high.
It’s a win-win if you’re the owner of the server farm who had closed door discussions with the power company beforehand. I mean the citizens don’t win, but when has this ever been a concern?
If it was in their best interests financially, it would be included in the financial model before construction. My guess is that it was more appealing to just cut deals with various players.