Microsoft shells out for 2.5GW of solar. Not that it'll make a big dent in its emissions

With just seven years left to achieve its 100 percent renewable energy goals, Microsoft said it would add as much as 2.5 gigawatts of solar power to its operations under a partnership with South Korea's Hanwha Qcells. Microsoft has a massive energy footprint with more than 200 offices and 60 cloud regions; many of these …

[lglethal]

Hmmm...

I'm no Microsoft fan, but attributing the energy use of the user of a software product to the manufacturer sends entirely unreasonable unless the sole purpose of the computer running that software is to run that software - so something like a medical imaging computer whose sole purpose is to run medical scans might be reasonable to attribute to the medical imaging software company, but even then...

Attributing the energy use of all Windows machines implies that without Windows people wouldn't use computers. Which is frankly utter bollocks.

The energy used by my computer is on me, not on the hardware manufacturers, and certainly not on the software writers whose programs I choose to use.

Including the use of their software on their energy report seems a very strange stick to choose to beat themselves with...

[localzuk]

Re: Hmmm...

If we jump down that rabbit hole, how far do you go? Is Tesco responsible for the energy I use to cook my dinner when I buy the ingredients from them?

[Filippo]

Re: Hmmm...

It gets pretty stupid even without going very far down that hole. If I attribute the power usage of my Windows computer to Microsoft, am I then no longer attributing it to myself? So it's fine if I leave it on idling, because it's not my carbon? That doesn't work. So, should I then also attribute it to myself? But then I'm counting it twice - three times if I also attribute it to the hardware manufacturer, four or more times if I also attribute it to any of a number of additional steps involved in getting from raw sand to the execution of my software.

None of that makes sense. The only reasonable approach is to make it clear that primary emissions and secondary emissions are apples and oranges, not the same thing, and they should not be compared. It's good to reduce either, but they are separate efforts, with separate methods, and separate goals.

[Stuart Castle]

Re: Hmmm...

Actually, it's no longer as clear cut as saying "The energy used by my computer is on me, not on the hardware manufacturers, and certainly not on the software writers whose programs I choose to use.". A lot of software (certainly most Microsoft software) now has some sort of cloud component, whether they use the cloud to provide limited functionality or the entire application (Office can operate either way). Even the OS increasingly has some components that are hosted remotely, even it it's just update repo servers.

Admittedly, you can still obtain software (both Applications and OSs) that operates entirely offline, but it *is* getting more difficult to do so, especially if at some point, you need to use commercial software, with more and more companies moving toward online activation, updating and even subscriptions. Any company who produces software that relies on access to remote servers for any functionality should be using alternative energy where feasible to do so, and they should be held accountable.

I broadly agree that the software writers should not have responsibility for the energy your computer uses running their software. After all, you could be running a low power office type machine or a laptop that uses a 40W PSU. Or you could be using a high end gaming PC that requires hundreds of watts to even start. That said, there are techniques they can use to minimise the power their applications use (such as limiting the resources used, accessing data in bursts, to allow drives to spin down, and coding efficiently to reduce impact on CPU/GPU etc).

That said, they should be doing that *anyway*..

[xyz]

Dumb idea?

I live off grid and the biggest PITA is battery capacity... It's never enough, so...

I was thinking and as an example, if it's evening on the east coast USA, it'll be sunny someplace else on the planet, given that the planet rotates. So, why not contractually offset the panels, so that the sunny someplace feeds evening east coast USA and then daytime east coast USA feeds somplace dark. Etc etc. Just an idea.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Dumb idea?

What? Are you talking about a national energy grid? As is common in Europe (Portugal to Ukraine, Norway to Greece). Many US states have argued that this is unconstitutional.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Many US states have argued that this is unconstitutional.

Especially Texas.... (sic)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dumb idea?

Replace States with "paid shills representing energy companies" profiteering from the lack of organisation and you'll be onto something.

[IvyKing]

Re: Dumb idea?

FWIW, the US, a good part of Canada and parts of Mexico contain three grids, the Western grid ranging from the Pacific coast to somewhat east of the Rockies, the Texas grid and the rest of the US and Canada. Since the Rockies are fr the most part less densely populated than the surrounding ares, there traditionally has not been enough in the way of east-west transmission lines to support running the US as one synchronous grid. There are a number of asynchronous ties between the western, eastern and Texas grids.

As for Microsoft, my question to the is of they have enough battery storage capacity to not require non-renewable electricity at night and/or when winds are calm?

[doublelayer]

Re: Dumb idea?

"Many US states have argued that this is unconstitutional."

I know how fun making insults without checking can be, but it might help you to look at the facts before you do it. Of the 50 U.S. states, 47 are connected to large interstate grids, with two covering the whole nation although those two are linked. Let's take a look at the three that are not. The first is Hawaii, which isn't connected because it's in the middle of the ocean, two time zones from the nearest continental coast. The second is Alaska, which is not connected because it's quite remote. Even if lines were made to link it with Canada, the part of Canada that borders Alaska is sparsely populated. The third is Texas, which is the only state that could easily connect to a grid but chose not to do so. So if you're to be correct, we must redefine the word many to mean one.

Except that, despite the fact that Texas chose not to join a grid and it has caused them problems, they don't argue that an interstate grid is unconstitutional. That would be a rather stupid argument because it's pretty easy to prove it incorrect. All they have to argue is that they don't want to do it, and that's basically what they've decided. Bad decision? Yes, it turns out it was. Spurious legal argument? Nope. No states meet your criteria.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dumb idea?

Connected, yes; however, the ownership of the assets within them are highly balkanised; and have multiple regulators spanning multiple states with different agendas.

A certain UK network firm went into the US thinking it could reform and rationalise a large area by buying up a bunch of those balkanised operations and unifying the regulatory front too. This, emphatically, did not work.

It's still a profitable operation, no arguments there, but far from the integrated planning that this sector really, really needs IF your goals are low-cost to consumer and high uptime. If your goal is to print money, frankly, carry on as we are.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Dumb idea?

It can be done locally. At least until bribes and lobbying from greedy power companies kill it, you can get credit for exported power. The trick is to have enough battery capacity to not import anything between sundown and the end of peak rates. It works out like:

Morning: Import power at normal cost

Noon: Solar provides power and charges the batteries

Afternoon: Batteries are full. Solar provides power and exports at peak cost

Evening: Batteries provide power until peak cost ends

Night: Import power at normal cost

Since you rigged the system to import at normal cost and export at peak cost, you have a lot of credit to use for dark rainy days when there's insufficient solar power. Power companies are OK with this from an operational point of view because high loads on hot sunny days is what overheats the grid. Except Texas, where it blacks out when it's cold.

[jmch]

Eh, what???

" the vast majority of Microsoft's emissions — 13.7 million metric tons of CO2 as of 2021 — are attributable to emissions from the purchase or sale of goods and services, the transportation of those services..."

What goods or services are Microsoft producing and shipping that are nor part of it's core software business?? Are they still selling Zunes in unimaginable quantities??

"... and the use of those products over their lifetimes."

Is that implying that if I run a Microsoft OS on my PC, that someone is counting that emission as Microsoft's? That's pretty insane even by green-nutjob standards!!

[Spazturtle]

Re: Eh, what???

They are measuring they emissions in a certain way to inflate the number so that in a few years time they can change how they measure it and claim that they have massively cut their emissions.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Eh, what???

"What goods or services are Microsoft producing and shipping that are nor part of it's core software business?? Are they still selling Zunes in unimaginable quantities??"

Mice, keyboards, X-Boxes, Surface devices amongst others.

[jmch]

Re: Eh, what???

"the vast majority of Microsoft's emissions"

absolutely, but still - "the vast majority of Microsoft's emissions"?????

[dogcatcher]

Shine light upon the Omissions

Let's just change the headline to omissions; we can then discuss what else Microsoft doesn't do.

[Steve Davies 3]

MS has gone WOKE

At least certain right wing politicians and Cable News Stations have declared.

MS (bless their cotton socks) issued an update for the X-Box that powers it down if it has been left running but not in use just to save the customer money on their power bills.

Senator Ted (Cancun) Cruze went on Fox News (no surprise there then) and called them 'woke' for doing this. Fox naturally agreed with him.

If the X-Box update got his knickers in such a twist then this should make his head explode.

I'm no MS fan but at least they are trying a little bit here.

[lglethal]

Re: MS has gone WOKE

No, No, No Ted, that's not Woke. That's Sleep Mode. Woke is when it starts back up again...

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: MS has gone WOKE

Also, this seems as good a time as any to remind people of Godwin's Second Law.

[Binraider]

If overall demand for non-green sources is reduced; it matters not one jot whether it's MS offsetting it's own demand or if it's reduced elsewhere. (Apart from in the accountants heads).

As Dieter Helm has cited on many an occasion, perhaps pollution being taxed at the point of consumption is the solution to driving change in behaviour.

After all, you did pick the 1.6 turbodiesel for financial reasons over the 3.0L petrol... (The failing being that the latter probably is cleaner end-to-end... but one problem at a time).

[Cuddles]

Just no

"many of these facilities consume tens of millions of watts of power every hour"

They consume tens of millions of watts. Watts are the unit of power, so saying watts of power is just weird. And it's either watts or joules per hour, absolutely not watts per hour.

[runt row raggy]

Re: Just no

(kilo) watt hours are the industry standard for charging for power use. the article has power over time, if not quite in standard format, so I don't see anything here to get my nerd hackles up over.

and yes, i split an infinitive.

[richardcox13]

El Reg: units fail!

many of these facilities consume tens of millions of watts of power every hour

Energy per time per time is not a measure of power usage. (It could be a measure of power change, but that would not fit the rest of the article.)

This isn't hard!