Microsoft’s Dublin DC power plant gets the, er, green light Unable to secure a steady supply of power from Ireland's national power grid, Microsoft has elected to build its own power plant to keep its €900 million datacenter development outside Dublin up and running. It's no secret that datacenters use a lot of power - so much so that in some certain markets, of which Dublin is one, …
This potentially makes Microsofts's choice of generators a more sustainable option than Amazon's, as the generators can be converted to run on a 50/50 mix of hydrogen and natural gas or upgraded to run entirely on green hydrogen.
In both cases I'll believe it when I see it: there is presently no bulk source of Green Hydrogen
"In both cases I'll believe it when I see it: there is presently no bulk source of Green Hydrogen"
That is true, but... as more and more demand grows, I'd expect the supply to grow as well.
Similarly when cars were invented, gasoline was bought from pharmacies (and elsewhere) before dedicated gas station started appearing.
Unlikely..
They are almost certainly using 22 of these things: https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/offerings/power-generation/gas-turbines/sgt-300.html
The efficiency is 30% as stated by Siemens. Even if you used a 50/50 mix of Hydrogen, you'd be using 50% gas, of which 70% is wasted heat in the 530·C 30kg/s exhaust.. It's unlikely that they are doing anything useful with that heat such as CHP either, because they only want to run these things when its profitable to do so.
Why is there no source of green hydrogen at the moment? Well, because the only electrode material that is currently feasible is as I understand it still er.. Platinum. And we need thousands of Amps since each cell only produces/consumes 1.5 Volts, so that Platinum surface area has to be big...
There are only two things that I believe could help us to significantly reduce our carbon emissions to the level required: One is Nuclear power, the other is to stop using so much bloody energy. And I doubt Microsoft is going to like that second one, and even they don't have the resources to build a nuke in the UK/Europe, thanks to the climate of fear of the nuclear bogeyman.
Given the description and reluctance to use it at other time it probably is a big dose of open-cycle gas turbines.
CCGT would be better, around double the efficiency, but they seem to be large units. Given the high cost of gas it surprises me they are not going for high efficiency, but I ma sure someone has worked out the minimum spend to suck Dublin's electric most of the time and just chip in at high cost when no other alternative is available.
The trouble with CCGTs is that they take a much longer time to reach full power - not so good for a plant which is mainly for backup purposes, plus for making a bit of money on the "balancing market" (where corruption is rife, btw)
CCGTs are indeed much bigger, since they have extra heat exchangers and large low-pressure steam turbines, and they also need a big source of water. They essentially use the OCGT's "jet engine" exhaust as the fire for a steam engine.
I think Microsoft are as worried as I am (or perhaps, excited) that there is no way that the National Grid (or the smaller lower-voltage distribution grids) are going to cope with everyone having EVs and Heat Pumps - the demand for electricity is going to rocket - we are closing two out of three energy distribution systems (the gas grid and road-hauled petroleum) and placing their entire load on the one system which is is already the most expensive, overloaded and unreliable. (and, frankly, vulnerable)
They also stand to make a tidy profit if they can spin up their generator at the drop of a hat when it does all go Pete Tong.. Balancing market prices can be 100 times higher than normal wholesale prices, so it doesn't really matter how inefficient it is. It's high-power, it's long-duration and it's immediately dispatchable.
The trouble with CCGTs is that they take a much longer time to reach full power - not so good for a plant which is mainly for backup purposes, plus for making a bit of money on the "balancing market" (where corruption is rife, btw)
Yep, from the same source-
Three major energy companies have been accused of exploiting loopholes in the Balancing Mechanism earning £525 million.
It has been reported that Uniper, SSE and Vitol VPI manipulated the electricity market by promising to power down their power stations during peak hours, only to demand a much higher price from the grid to keep running.
There has also been some strange goings on with flows across the interconnectors that reek of arbitrage. Ireland relies on it's interconnectors, and the EU relies on Irish datacentres. So there's a high concentration of risk depending on some very vulnerable connections. Curious if MS will work with any inertia provider, because that's another massive balancing scam. So if they'll be working with some battery provider to cover that base.
It's strange given Bill Gates has been promoting SMRs that they don't propose using those, but then it gets into the Green neo-luddites thinking an SMR is more dangerous than a grid-scale battery farm. MS will undoubtedly greenwash the whole project by buying up REGOs and offsetting with a few trees planted where nobody can audit.
It's not surprising. Gates has had nothing to do with Microsoft for a long time.
SMRs are still experimental - the technology is mature (it's been used in submarines for ages), but manufacturing more than a handful at once has never been done before. It needs a lot of work before they could be built at scale.
This OCGT will be built as fast as possible, as cheaply as possible, and may even be mostly second-hand because a lot of sites have been ripping them out because they're so inefficient.
Well, it's worse than just "natural gas". Ireland imports most of its gas via the UK system, which in turn imports gas. Although there's links from the UK to the EU and Norway, all marginal gas volume in the UK and Ireland is now met from LNG, so in addition to any gas plant performance, you can add 25-30% losses in LNG logistics, and about half of that LNG is from the US. And US east coast LNG is largely shale gas that itself has poor environmental credentials.
In respect of SMR, where's the construction ready technology? Although I like the idea, SMR remains a pipe dream unless somebody will actually ensure that orders are placed. With our state controlled but supposedly market driven energy systems how will that ever happen? In Ireland, it's even more complicated because there's a law that specifically bans nuclear power generation. Not only would that need rescinding, you'd need to convince the population that it is safe. Which in a country that's not had nuclear power before, is not going to happen. Opponents who can't do maths will start piffling on about "green hydrogen" created by wind power, or Ireland's extensive wind power potential for direct generation, or indeed anything at all to stifle nuclear. And with UK planning to close the four remaining AGRs by 2028, that'll remove 25% more nuclear capacity than Hinkley Point C will add, meaning the UK isn't going to be in a position to export reliable despatchable power to Ireland.
Microsoft have gone for the cheapest and quickest solution available, in their shoes we'd do the same. If the EU wanted things to be different, they'd have ensured that EU DCs were built somewhere other than a location chosen solely as its a tax haven. Ireland's carbon intensity for electricity is four times that of France, although France has it's own ageing nuclear fleet challenges, so the marginal demand would be different. Spain has the potential to combine both new solar and wind resources if you're anti-nuclear, and its grid carbon intensity is still substantially better than Ireland. Or Denmark where cooling is less of a problem and the grid is pretty low carbon intensity. Other country options too, but fundamentally this particular Microsoft problem is caused by choosing a location that makes them a whole lot more money, and if the environment is worse off, well that's acceptable to Wall Street, especially since there will be some spreadsheet environmentalism to claim carbon offsets.
And US east coast LNG is largely shale gas that itself has poor environmental credentials.
But elements of what used to be British Gas and the National Grid invested in US gas distribution, so can probably profit from this. I've lost track of who owns what with the US gas distribution and LNG infrastructure. But it's somewhat ironic that we've switched from dependency on Norwegian & EUgas to US. Especially when the US seems determined to shut down their oil & gas industry, and we still could be self-sufficient. Meanwhile, in other news-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/vattenfall-pull-boreas-offshore-wind-farm-not-economically-viable/
An energy company has stopped development on a major wind farm off the East coast, blaming rising costs for halting a project which would have powered 1.5 million homes.
The decision, announced in the Swedish firm’s Vattenfall’s quarterly results, comes at a cost of £415m and has prompted questions from unions about the future of similar projects elsewhere in the UK.
...“Offshore wind is essential for affordable, secure and clean electricity, and it is a key element of Vattenfall’s strategy for fossil-free living,” said Vattenfall chief executive Anna Borg.
Translation: Offshore wind is vital for Vattenfall's future profits, and sorry, we've been lying to you. The 'renewables' scumbags have been lying about wind's affordability for years, telling us that costs have fallen. The lie is mostly down to our rigged CfD mechanism-
Last year Vattenfall won one of these contracts to build the Norfolk Boreas wind farm at a joint record-low strike price of £37.35 per megawatt hour.
But since winning the auction, Vattenfall and others have warned that costs have increased far too fast for these projects to be economical anymore.
In March, Denmark’s Orsted warned that it might pause the Hornsea 3 project in the UK – expected to be the world’s largest wind farm when it opens – unless it gets help with surging costs. Hornsea 3 has the same £37.35 per MWh strike price as Norfolk Boreas.
I wouldn't recommend holding your breath for any statements from 'RenewablesUK' or the Bbc apologising for their part in this fraudulent miss-selling. CfDs are also indexed, so both Vattenfall and Orstead's strike prices would have been inflated already. Inflation has been climbing mostly due to energy costs, mostly driven by political decisions to ban cheap gas, so this shouldn't be directly impacting wind farmers because they don't use gas. But energy costs would be inflating production costs for towers, blades and transporting those.
Or it could just be opportunistic rent-seeking from the 'renewables' scumbags to re-negotiate their strike prices in line with the energy prices they're responsible for. It'll be interesting to see if the government caves and bails out the rent-seekers, or attempts to hold them to their contractual obligations. It's also a problem for Ireland and MS given they're both dependent on wind and interconnectors to keep their lights on, so to an extent dependent on UK energy policy decisions.
But it could be a good time for nuclear given we still need "affordable, secure and clean electricity", which the wind industry cannot and will never be able to deliver. There's a couple of SMR designs almost ready, so the government should order a couple of those as pilot projects. Especially if nuclear is also given the low carbon status it deserves. Of course the Green neo-luddites will violently object, because they ignore history and why the Age of Sail gave way to cheaper and more reliable alternatives.
"But it's somewhat ironic that we've switched from dependency on Norwegian & EUgas to US"
To be fair, we have to recognise that the original Europe-wide plan was to rely on Russian gas by pipeline, and whilst in hindsight and at the time that was not such a good idea, we start from here.
I don't believe there's any construction ready SMR designs in the Western world. Some nice computer renders and artist's impressions, but nobody's actually done a full design for build. Even when they do, they'll find that government agencies (such as the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation) move exceptionally slowly, and are so risk averse that getting anything approved will take decades.
On the subject of SMR, it's worthy of note that in China they've managed to get PBMR working - the Germans started development, sold the concept on to South Africa when Germany decided Russian gas was better than nuclear power, the South Africans dabbled and gave it away to the Chinese. Chiona didn't mess about, and have had a (by nuclear standards) small PBMR plant that drives a couple of 210 MWe turbines, been operating at full power since the end of last year. And that demonstrates the problem facing advocates of nuclear in the West. To get any nuclear fleet developed and built, you need government to support the development with serious money, and to place the orders and manage construction. That's how we built the UK Magnox fleet, how South Korea built its nuclear fleet, how France did etc etc. If you expect private companies to do development you'll get nowhere as they don't have the cash or the commitment over decades, and the same for building them. Look at how we had to bribe EDF with billions to build Hinkley C, and within that time scale, thanks to problems in France and Finland both EDF and Areva have been absorbed back into the French state. What chance anything innovative being developed and built in the UK? Look at the trivial UK government funding for fusion to see the same thing - and the same mad logic that private enterprise will deliver results in a technology that's at least two or three decades away (and arguable always has been).
Look at how we had to bribe EDF with billions to build Hinkley C, and within that time scale, thanks to problems in France and Finland both EDF and Areva have been absorbed back into the French state. What chance anything innovative being developed and built in the UK? Look at the trivial UK government funding for fusion to see the same thing - and the same mad logic that private enterprise will deliver results in a technology that's at least two or three decades away (and arguable always has been).
That's government for you. We bailed out EDF and their EPR design by signing a very generous deal. China's building EPR-designs faster and cheaper than we seem able to. Other designs are available. The government decided to subsidise windmill development, and we've seen the impact on our energy bills. They've been around long enough now that the problems with windmills should be obvious to government, even before Vatenfall's special pleading.
So government can and should try something completely different. Rolls Royce claim they have an SMR near-ready, and we know they can produce small, reliable reactors. They're the only ones that have gone critical in the last few decades and are in our submarines. 100+ people living and working in close proximity to those reactors, and they're all perfectly normal. Well, normal for submariners. So government should JFDI and order 2 pilot plants, one from RR and one from whoever thinks they've got a design ready. Approvals and planning permissions can be fast-tracked because government controls those functions. Build them on some handy MoD land and let the MoD do some civil defence training keeping the inevitable neo-luddites away. Build it under the auspices of 'nUKe', or 'national UK energy', which could always be privatised later. Or re-branded.
Protestors working for the 'renewables' lobby will, of course object because nuclear, and they don't understand physics. Government can simply ignore them because even when we were in the EU, Crtical National Infrastructure matters were reserved, hence why France was able to protect EDF from State Aid rules. We're not in the EU any more, so can act independently, and even start selling energy to the EU rather than importing it. It would create jobs, and potentially a lot of exports, and even some geopolitical bonuses. Russia builds a lot of nuclear power plants, and has a pretty full order book.
Challenge with SMRs is the theory really depends on being able to mass produce them based on standardised units, which should massively reduce costs and paperwork involved in building a new power plant. But someone has to bite the bullet and get that process started.
@ Jellied Eel: I'd agree with all that as a logical plan of action, and one that I'd support. But where's the political party willing to JFDA? The highlight of the last 13 years of BlueLabour is that all cats will need to be microchipped, and Gove banning slug killer because they're his relatives. A big splurge on the unwanted HS2, quite a few new foreign designed trains that break down a lot, and that's about it.
Seems likely we'll have Labour back in 2025, led by the ultimate ditherer. They'll achieve nothing useful, and are even less likely to approve SMR. Their statements on energy are all the same old bilge about wind power, tidal, and solar power. They understand nothing about energy, nothing about the costs that the uniparty policies are baking into future energy bills, nor anything of the consequences of making business energy even more expensive, when it's already amongst the most expensive in the OECD.
Seems likely we'll have Labour back in 2025, led by the ultimate ditherer. They'll achieve nothing useful, and are even less likely to approve SMR. Their statements on energy are all the same old bilge about wind power, tidal, and solar power. They understand nothing about energy, nothing about the costs that the uniparty policies are baking into future energy bills, nor anything of the consequences of making business energy even more expensive, when it's already amongst the most expensive in the OECD.
But they have Ed Milliband, he who gave us the Climate Change Act. Or they have Ed Davey, who's made money consulting in the energy sector. Then there's 'Lord' Deben, who's also a highly paid energy consultant and has been advising the government as well. Surely they know what they're doing?
Ok, I jest. But there's also just been an announcement of another boondoggle to be built in Manchester-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/24/manchester-plans-worlds-largest-battery-wind-energy/
Batteries can charge on windy or sunny days cheaply, or even for free, and then deploy that power when needed. The plant is expected to offer the equivalent of 2,080 megawatts – a decent sized power station – for an hour.
...It will be built at the Trafford Low Carbon Energy Park in Greater Manchester, which will also host the world’s first commercial liquid air storage system, being built by Highview Power, another energy storage firm, using its cryobattery technology.
Batteries probably can't charge for 'free' given they'd have to buy electricity to charge. But they do make a lot of profit providing balancing services and then selling that 'free' energy at collossal markups. But they're only needed because they add costs to an already expensive, intermittent and unreliable energy generating market. They're not needed if we simply built 2GW of new nuclear instead, which can deliver 2GW 24x7x365 regardless of weather.
We could build more EPRs, which would be cheaper because they're no longer FOAK (First of a Kind) costs given a number have been built, or in the process of being built in the UK and around the world. And one G.Brown Esq is no longer in power to offer mate's rates to his brother's employer. Other reactor designs are available, like pebble bed, prismatic or even thorium.
@Jellied Eel, I agree, trying to store electricity is mostly a farce. Yes, it can be done, and on a small scale is a necessity. At grid scale it's madness - whether hydro, battery, compressed air, wind power to hydrogen and back to power, flywheel, liquid air....I've worked for the world's largest energy company, we built most of these types of plant at significant scale to see what worked, and technically they could all be made to work, yet all suffered the same critical problems - net energy losses, limited availablity of low cost energy for charging or storage, asset cost and asset utilisation.
Even if you can make some breakthrough, introducing new assets to the ancillary services market will depress the price paid, meaning that the shiney eyed optimists find that they aren't in fact making money. The well known Dinorwig hydro storage plant is a favourite "look we can do it, it makes money" story, but compared to its construction costs (paid by you and I) it's been a real lemon, but we'll be the ones who took a hit when the CEGB built it in the first place, and then the assets were sold for a pittance at privatisation.
@Jellied Eel
I am all for green energy including nuclear but why such a weeping voice in your comment.
Vattenfall is a large energy company owned by the Swedish state active in many European countries. Why would they start building something if the numbers prowe it's not worth it.
And I am sure they have the right to skip it too without braking any promises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vattenfall
Vattenfall is a large energy company owned by the Swedish state active in many European countries. Why would they start building something if the numbers prowe it's not worth it.And I am sure they have the right to skip it too without braking any promises.
Because they entered into a contract to build it at a price? Then it's lobbying claimed that it's product was the cheapest form of energy generation, and everyone should be forced to buy more? So they got their sums wrong, and their PR very wrong. At the time the CfDs were awarded, many people in the energy industry reckoned the bids were unrealistic and intentionally lowballed the prices just to win them. In most business, this would be fraudulent, or at least a breach of contract.
The contract is the promise.
The contracts include annual indexing to increase strike prices by inflation. That's mostly been due to political decisions wrt gas, which isn't an input cost to that industry. Well, unless they're using gas-fired kilns to bake their massive carbon turbine blades. But surely they'd be using Green, 'renewable' energy for that. Vattenfall contracted to deliver energy for £37.35/MWh, and should deliver per their agreed contract. Now, they're weeping that costs have increased by 40% and they deserve to increase our energy bills even more. Tough.
Sorry, no. Other forms of energy generation are cheaper and more reliable, like nuclear. Especially if nuclear is given the same low-carbon treatment as burning forests, or wind farming.
@Lurko
You mention Denmark as low carbon but that is not quite true. Right now they get 75% of electricity from wind but the rest 25% they get from thermal power which is worse than in other Nordic countries and they also mostly have to import.
You find the Nordic grid here and it also includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
https://www.svk.se/en/national-grid/the-control-room/
@Lars: I know, but given current geopolitics, why would anybody want to locate critical data infrastructure in the eastern Baltic states? Your link shows there's significant two way flows between Russia and the Baltic states, those could be exploited to destabilise affairs without anybody setting foot on anybody else's soil. Ignoring those, there's three major power links across the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland that are just waiting to accidentally catch the anchor of a passing Russian trawler. And even if you trust Russia, Baltic electricity prices have been erratic and high even by the prevailing international comparisons.
Within my lifetime the majority of vehicles powered by either petrol or diesel were produced, and it is that aspect of this debate that has been, dare I say it, suppressed. We need to understand that our weather related problems have nothing to do with CO2; instead it is entirely caused by vehicles, and the associated production of electricity; because all such energy is produced by what are known as “Heat Engines”.
Burn a litre of petrol, or diesel, or produce electricity by nuclear power, all of the energy production is trammelled by the limitations of an inefficient heat to energy cycle of roughly 35%, (give or take a few percent depending upon the particular mechanism; piston engines in vehicles; steam turbines in power stations). The balance of the heat created is immediately distributed back into the surrounding atmosphere. Not to forget that ALL the energy created in any form of heat engine, always becomes heat eventually; the vehicle by movement, and braking, the electricity by distribution and the production of other forms of heat. All energy burnt/created within the heat engines eventually becomes a heat input to the atmosphere.
Not wanting anyone to try burning four litres of petrol in their garden, instead we need someone to set into motion a video demonstration of, say, a six lane motorway full of vehicles each travelling at, say, 90 kilometres an hour, above each showing an vivid illustration of the fuel being burnt, ~ 8 litres per hour, above each vehicle. Now take 1,495 billion vehicles including trucks https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-world/ In point of fact; all the energy used by the vehicle heats the atmosphere. How much fossil fuel energy is produced each year? The 2021 figure is 135,923 terawatt-hours. Again, go back to 1950 and the figure was 20,139 terawatt-hours. So since 1950 fossil fuel heat input to the atmosphere has increased 6.75 times. http://www.Ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels THAT is the primary problem that it would seem no one wants to fully illustrate; then add the nuclear, (because we are being told that nuclear is the answer to global warming, (by changing all heat engine vehicles into electric vehicles), when in fact nuclear is just another form of heat engine,
producing heat to create steam to power steam turbines; to drive generators; as also all the research into fusion power, is again, all about another form of heat engine, to again create steam to power turbines. Fact: The electrical generating efficiency of standard steam turbine power plants varies from a high of 37% HHV4 for large, electric utility plants designed for the highest practical annual capacity
factor, to under 10% HHV for small, simple plants which make electricity as a byproduct of delivering steam to processes or district heating systems. https://www.turbinesinfo.com/steam-turbine-efficiency/
Please, do not be confused with the thermodynamic efficiency of a steam turbine of up to 90%, which no doubt matches the thermodynamic efficiency of the combustion of petrol within any modern petrol engine. We are always dealing with the entire mechanical process of energy generation, heat in one end, energy out at the other. The total of which always introduces up to 63% heat loss to the atmosphere.US Energy Information Administration; More than 60% of energy used for electricity generation is lost in conversion https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44436#
There never was any problem with CO2, nor, again, with the production of meat using natural farming methods. Yes, the figures for carbon production show a massive increase; yet the quantum of atmospheric CO2 rises over time at a few parts per million. On the other hand, fossil fuel heat input has increased 675% . . . which accurately illustrates that the vast majority of carbon produced is being adsorbed by the planet; while taking the focus of intellectual thought away from the source of the heat into the atmosphere. It is my profound belief that we have to centre our ongoing research efforts onto any and every possible means to produce energy without any further reference to any form of heat engine. We must now, all of us, stop this inaccurate debate about CO2. Everyone has to be brought to realise every solution, using any form of heat engine, including nuclear or fusion power; is an intellectual dead end. Humanity has no option but to abandon the use of heat engines to produce energy in whatever form; vehicle power, or electricity generation, if it wishes to survive. That is the real challenge facing all of us.
Trying to place the blame upon, for example the production of beef, is a classic Red Herring designed to avoid the debate about where the heat is coming from ... Heat Engines. Our planet is drowning in heat . . . NOT CO2.
@Chris Coles, very very rough calculation* by yours truly estimates that Earth absorbs 500 Exa Watt Hours of energy from the sun annually. And it will absorb more if you add extra CO2, even in the parts per million range.
So the total heat emissions from heat engines are not material. But their CO2 is. Now let's get on with fixing that.
[*please do check my maths]
Errrr, what Myffy said.
Yes, all forms of power generation create excess heat. But this directly-released heat is a literal drop in the ocean. It is completely insignificant compared to the main source of heat on the planet - i.e. solar radiation (which is of the order of 2kW/m^2, i.e. ~5GW per square mile) which is being amplified by our CO2 emissions due to the greenhouse effect. If we amplify this enormous heat input by even a few fractions of a percent, it would cause us major problems. Whereas to output a few hundred GW by powering the entire UK from Nuclear power, for example, would only release around the amount that a hundred square miles of land would normally absorb from the sun at its peak (and for an average figure, conservatively multiply by a factor of 10, but no more).
In any case - all heat produced by Nuclear Power would eventually be released inside the Earth's core due to radioactive decay anyway. And we only need a tiny amount of Uranium ore to sustain ourselves without polluting our atmosphere at all, and it would have an utterly negligible effect on the warmth of the planet or the fuel available inside the earth. Such is the incredible amount of energy available from the nuclear transmutation of matter! :)
I somehow doubt they will ever need them since their plan is for multiple gas generatorsand a grid connection. If they ever have a power cut bad enough to require "more than 150 diesel generators", it's going to be a wide area outage AND problems with their gas supply and unless they are prepared to have them "on call", ie paying monthly to ensure availability, then they will not only be paying high prices to get them but be competing with every other business in the region. And deep pockets might not be enough to get them if it means hospitals or other essential services losing out to MS greed or other companies paying retainers for contracted access to gennies.
If the grid is down in the area then they can't supply power to anyone, because there is no 50Hz to synchronise with. It would be extremely dangerous to try to connect their generators upstream to supply their neighbours during an outage, because not only would the size of the load be unknown, but also when the grid does come back online it will be out of phase with their generators - that would result in a very loud bang and 150 borked generators.
So I agree I don't know what the point of the diesel generators is - unless they are just a second backup incase the OCGTs fail.
Does make me wonder what they plan to be doing with this datacentre..
"If the grid is down in the area then they can't supply power to anyone, because there is no 50Hz to synchronise with."
That's true, but local power export isn't intended to be an alternative to "big grid" supply, it's supplemental. The system calls on marginal (more expensive) generators as the system frequency falls to stop the system failing before there's a blackout. If there's a local distribution failure then indeed, local power export is not going to be possible, but that's not the purpose behind marginal power generation arrangements.
It is completely normal for a data center to have sufficient diesel generators to keep running if there is a power outage. The generators and sufficient diesel will be on site and wired to start automatically if power is lost.
Once you have a working, tested design, you don't mess with it. Making the gas generators start automatically, and ensuring that is reliable, is just too much work and/or too risky.
So the data center has diesel generators for reliability, when there is an unplanned power cut. And it has gas generators for when running those is cheaper than buying electricity from the grid. But the gas generators are not mission critical, they are just there to save some money. If the gas generators fail, or are down for maintenance, that does not affect the reliability of the data center.
Eire has to import both leccy and natural gas from the UK (which mostly needs to import some from Norway etc).
So MS wants to build a CO2 generator close to Dublin... Guess where the prevailing winds will push that CO2? Yep, the UK and IOM.
Apple wanted to build a DC out in the countryside and power it with solar yet ran into all sorts of environmental foes.
"Apple wanted to build a DC out in the countryside and power it with solar yet ran into all sorts of environmental foes."
The biggest environmental foe to solar powered DC in Ireland would be latitude. Average peak solar power potential is half that of southern Spain and in winter the northern latitudes occupied by Eire and the UK are incapable of generating any worthwhile amount of solar power. At these latitudes, wind as a technology beats solar hands down for output, especially if it is offshore.
MS perhaps claimed that it would be solar powered because it had a few panels on the barn roof. If it were as big as Ireland's largest roof mount array of 1.5MW, then we've got a way to go yet. That would power site's "hygiene" requirements like lighting, staff facilities, security, but only when the sun is shining. At the latitudes in question, peak power from a large array is about 0.5MW per hectare, so midday in midsummer then the full site peak power of 170MW would require 340 hectares (840 acres in old money). Then you need to factor in the difference in power use profile against the solar power profile across the year. Taking a flying guess at 40% average DC utilisation (vs full power), that's average power needs of around 42MW. But then factor in the typical 10% solar capacity factor (average annual yield vs rating) for this top edge of the globe and a fully solar powered 170MW DC needs about 820 hectares of solar panels (over 8 sq km, 2,020 acres). And then you either supply to the grid when you can't use it, and and hope for the best in return, or invent some wildly expensive and inefficient power storage facility.
>The biggest environmental foe to solar powered DC in Ireland would be latitude
Yes, but although the DC would be in Ireland in a strictly physical sense (and for tax reasons), for the purpose of energy generation it is domiciled in Spain
We (at a site moderately south in Scotland) were asked about solar power but for X kW of average consumption you need about 10X kW of solar panels to meet that averaged over a year, as well as big export or storage requirements. The pay-back time scales and shorter now that electricity has gone up by over 50% but it is not helped by interest also going up so investment has to pay-back at a higher rate to make it worthwhile.
TL;DR we can't justify solar unless subsidised.
"TL;DR we can't justify solar unless subsidised."
And we shouldn't be subsidising solar in this country because of its poor output. If people want to subsidise something on the basis "it's renewable", it should be offshore wind because the capacity factor is in the range 35-45% with potential for improvement.
"Guess where the prevailing winds will push that CO2? Yep, the UK and IOM"
CO2 isn't localised like radiation, it's cumulatively and uniformly absorbed into the atmosphere, with a bit of seasonal and fixed geographic variation. You don't get a cloud of it blow over the UK and end up with a couple of days of climate warming over the Pennines until it passes over.
Easy maths? Not at all. Generators get paid according to prevailing demand in half hour periods (actual reality is a lot more complex), so trying to export at 2am when there's no demand and very low wholesale prices won't work, during the day there's often patchy demand that existing assets can meet, and then there's the cost of maintenance, which will vary with a range of indicators but primarily starts and run time. Generators need to do a lot of guesswork about demand (driven by weather, holidays, sporting events etc), contract their fuel supply well in advance (often under take or pay arrangements),
commit to availability and stick to that - and if they get any of it wrong they are "out of balance" and get clobbered for massive penalties.
It also very unlikely that open cycle gas turbine plant could profitably export near continuously, due to its low efficiency (meaning a lot more gas needed for a given output). And that would be further whacked because MS would have to buy emissions certificates from the EU ETS, and in the past few years they've become rather pricey at around €90/tonne. For occasional grid support (as cyberdemon said earlier) there's plenty of sense offering them to the grid through ancillary services arrangements.
But like in the Nederland’s where used power of the cloud provides is approximately equal to the power of the installed wind mill park .. we are getting to an end and we need new solutions.
So that’s why I think in the next decade these mega cloud providers will have their own or shared nuclear power plants to power their mega farms.The minimal residue power will be sold against the actual power plant operators.
We already say that cloud service providers are utilities ...
The legation needs to be up do date to get these new players play save and see that incase the go broke .. that power plant still can be operated in a save way for the generations to come. (you can’t have a on/off switch at the reactor side). However I’m sure that with these new cloud players embracing the nuclear powerplant they will bring innovation, safety and shaper price also in these field.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/small-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx
and there is legit concern of https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/small-nuclear-power-projects-may-have-big-waste-problems-study-2022-05-31/
So, Microsoft has not heard that SMRs from one company--NuScale (https://www.nuscalepower.com/en)--have already received NRC approval, but it IS interested in pursuing the use of fusion reactors?--
"Microsoft's big bet on helium-3 fusion explained"---https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/17/microsoft_bet_on_fusion/
What a real giant when it comes to the understanding of current technology.
I can't believe they didn't take the opportunity for a Nuclear SMR considering they've just been greenlit, would be a damn site more 'eco' than this, requiring no fossil fuels whatsoever. (Nuclear waste aside ofc).
Also I couldn't help but spot this:
"Microsoft has also received permission to run more than 150 diesel generators at the site" - 150? That seems like an incredibly large quantity of smaller generators. Anyone 'in the know' - Any idea why they didn't opt for fewer, larger capacity generators?
If it's good enough for the NRC I can't imagine the criteria will be all that different for anywhere else.I think it would be hard to argue an SMR would be less eco than a whacking great big gas turbine power station burning natural gas. Rolls Royce's SMR design is only a year or so away from being approved by the Office for Nuclear Regulation in the UK so it's not outside the realms of possibility.
Just to put it into perspective, a single SMR can provude 470MW, almost two and a half times the requirement for this DC so could also supplement the local grid in times of load fluctuations if needs be.
SMR are not ready for deployment yet.
They need to build a demonstration plant. Which will probably be more expensive than planned and take longer than planned - these things always do. Then they need to demonstrate it working reliably for a bit.
Then, I hope, we can have a large scale rollout of SMRs.
I do really hope that SMRs work, and get somewhere close to their mass production cost and ease of construction goals. Nuclear is important to fight climate change. CHP and district heating/cooling would also be a boost for efficiency, and SMRs would be a good fit for that. But without a working demonstration plant, we don't know enough to plan for real deployments.
If the diesel generators fail, they do not appear to have a coal-powered back up. That is scandalously poor planning.
The need for students/children on zero hours contracts for ad hoc 'active travel' power generation on treadmills or bicycles if the coal gets wet, requires further research. After all, it does rain a lot in Ireland.
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