That comment about wholesale prices is not actually quite true here in the northwest where avoiding BPA actually sometimes results in cheaper power (ie grant, douglas and chelan counties whoes PUDs own their own dams and are obligated to service their customer and as non-profits actually sell to retail users at near the wholesale grid rates since they have nearly zero cost). Because pacificorp is a private utility they are actually only able to get the leftovers of the hydro from the northwest, BPA must sell to public utilities first (even if it is LA) so there are effectively two prices here in the northwest for wholesale and that is why pacificorp, portland general and puget sound energy all have far far higher rates than the public utilities, even the public utilities with no generation of their own. I was pretty surprised about facebook's choice as well, almost an identical climate can be found along the columbia river in the same places that the very cheapest power is located. They must have some other factors than just weather significantly contribute to the costs to justify not going for the cheapest power. John ________________________________________ From: Joel jaeggli [joelja@bogus.com] Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 3:48 PM To: Steven G. Huter Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: facebook spying on us? On 9/30/11 15:19 , Steven G. Huter wrote:
I can't tell you the kind of servers, but I can say that I was recently in Prineville, OR, where FB is building a data center (and a second data center). I was used to the ol data centers - you know, where there's raised floors, cabinets, cool air, a guard and a few guys around with some screens?
But this was massive. I was amazed at the size - a few city blocks long and a city block wide, with a transformer and power line the size of a small city. I wonder if the Feds were involved.
the bonneville power administration.
hey joelja
this August 2011 article in the Economist outlines some relevant info about the prineville, oregon FB datacenter.
ambient cooling is important just like power is important, by sonic.net gets ~240days of ambient in santa rosa so it's feasible wholesale market prices a driven by availability from the largest producer. so you'll pay market price as benchmarked at the bonnevilla transmission yard just as is much of california and az the refence price is at palo verde az. there's only one coal plan in oregon and it's 600MW of generating capacity in boardman that's portland general electric. we've got a 20MW interuptable contract with siliconvalley power precisely becuase it's vanishingly close to the wholesale rate compared to PGEs pricing structure so if you ever wonder why the DCs are in sunnyvale and santa clara but not mountainview, there's a good reason.
steve