FallenJoe t1_itwnjcc wrote
Reply to comment by lightknight7777 in Microsoft says the global energy crisis can cost the company $800 million more in energy costs this year by chrisdh79
"Lets heavily invest in power sources that don't provide consistent power, so that we can power our datacenters that requires 100% power uptime with absolutely no downtime" is a bit of a ridiculous take.
They're not idiots, which unsurprisingly means that they're just continuing to buy power from existing power suppliers instead of dumping what would a decade of work and tens of billions of dollars of construction into getting a slightly better power rate in Europe.
There is no magic handwaving solution to energy prices that's going to take effect quickly, because if there were, people would already be doing them. There's no reason for Microsoft to get into the power business when any economically feasible plan can be done by another party. The slightly better power rate isn't worth the massive cost, financial risk, and regulatory exposure across multiple countries that would be required.
lightknight7777 t1_itwnlxu wrote
Batteries exist.
FallenJoe t1_itwo5xc wrote
And there are many reasons why they are not used on a large scale.
lightknight7777 t1_itwohkn wrote
looks at Australia
Disagree. There are several very large battery systems implemented now. The reason why there aren't a ton is because solar has only really been viable for a decade.
FallenJoe t1_itwtwps wrote
There's a very large difference between using batteries as an intermediate point and temporary storage point for input into the grid, and using them as a primary power source for datacenters, which are one of the most energy intensive operations around. The longer you need to store power, the less economically viable battery use is. Even if you had enough perfectly consistent (hah!) solar/wind generation nearby to power your facility, the battery levels required to keep the facility powered would be prohibitive.
I am a network engineer who works in both larger datacenters and smaller network closets/hubs, and even the battery backup required to keep a single crowded vertical network rack running for a few hours in the event of a power outage is hundreds of pounds and waist high. Scaling that out to large datacenter levels of power consumption and overnight capacity and you're talking completely absurd levels of expensive power storage capability.
And again, if there's a good location for a cheap and green new power installation, it's not really to Microsoft's benefit to get into the power business. It's 100% going to be cheaper for Microsoft to let someone else build and run a power plant that feeds into the general grid and just take advantage of the lower aggregate power cost.
lightknight7777 t1_itx38br wrote
Those backups are just for emergency outages. Actual grid batteries are far more efficient.
Power companies routinely take advantage of customers. You're acting like they don't make money when they operate.
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