Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Electricity Decentralization Study

I have been thinking about an update to my now 2 year old white paper on data center site selection. Many blog posts and articles on the web this past year have prompted me to think of many new additions that could be integrated in to it.

For instance -- TreeHugger.com reported today on a very interesting story about the 100-Mile Diet for Electricity? It discusses a new/second version of a study done by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) titled Energy Self-Reliant States. It is a very interesting article that of course ties into the number one priority for data centers -- power. The study argues that "the cost of constructing new transmission lines to carry the power and electricity losses during transmission could result in an electricity cost to the consumer that is about the same, or higher, than local generation with minimal transmission upgrades."

I have a blog post brewing on the red-hot topic for 2009, smart grids, that will summarize the industry news for the year and everything that is happening with smart grid technologies. Stay tuned.

Microsoft Chicago Data Center Photo Tour

Although originally reported over a month ago at Data Center Knowledge --- CNet has a photo tour (follow-up or re-hash story) of the new Microsoft data center in Chicago today.

I am still hopeful that the data center Microsoft is planning for Des Moines will be their generation 4 data center model. I am extremely curious to see that in action. I've analyzed the video and pictures that they published last December a few thousand times trying to figure out each component and exactly how the containers are integrated and supported.

Hey Microsoft -- are you ready to build in Des Moines yet??!!?