back to article Can Ireland's grid green satisfy Facebook and Apple?

When Facebook in January became the latest big-tech name to join Ireland’s roll call of data centre operators, its chief broke out the green flag – renewables. At the announcement in County Meath, company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg boasted the planned new facility would be “one of the most advanced and energy efficient …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Hilarious

    We live in interesting times - when you can plot a DDOS and the whole country electricity consumption/production and correlate them.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No wonder Zuck is into green energy..

    .. he produces enough hot air as it is. I reckon he must power his house all by himself.

    Disclaimer: I don't like the guy :)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear

    It would appear that Ireland is heading for problems with 'green' energy and the grid.

    Germany found out to its cost that much over 15% 'green' energy caused stability problems and now China has wind turbine grid problem as well.

    The main problem appears to be that the wind isn't constant and a lot of wind energy is generated when no one wants it and doesn't produce it when they do - not an ideal situation.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Oh dear

      There is always the interns-in-treadmills option.

      "Junior Deputy Assistant Vice President of Power Generation". Or Something.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Is Ireland's grid connected to any other countries?

      If so, it really isn't a problem. In the US the state of Iowa being roughly 60% larger than Ireland currently has over 6300 MW of current wind capacity and is on target to generate over 40% of the state's electrical demand by 2020. Measured in kilowatts per square mile it is the densest wind power state in the US by a long shot. No grid stability issues at all, since it is interconnected with much of the central US.

      One issue I could see for wind power in Ireland are the roads. How the heck can you move those huge turbine blades along those narrow winding roads? There are probably a lot of good turbine sites that go wanting because the logistics of erecting one there are too daunting.

      1. Shane McCarrick

        Re: Is Ireland's grid connected to any other countries?

        Yes- we have an interconnector with Wales (enters the sea at Rush in Dublin- exits at Barkby Beach in North Wales). We're developing an interconnector with France (its due to be commissioned shortly I believe)- and we are already interconnecting with Northern Ireland and Scotland.

        1. Mage Silver badge

          Re: Is Ireland's grid connected to any other countries?

          Except it doesn't much help, except to import nuclear generated Electricity to Ireland!

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Is Ireland's grid connected to any other countries?

        Wind.

        It tends to stop all over Western Europe at the same time for a week or two at a time, often in winter.

        Europe isn't like the USA.

    3. Aitor 1

      Re: Oh dear

      That is the reason you should diversify, and have storage.

      And also, upgrade your systems: it is not the 70s anymore, even if most electric grid managers seem to be firmly anchored in those times.

      1. Steve Todd

        Re: Oh dear

        Storage is an issue. To store energy on the scale of electricity generation to replace it for any significant period isn't practical. Pumped water storage is good for a few hours at most. Zero or low winds can last for a week or more in Europe.

    4. Edward Ashford

      Re: Oh dear

      Google nie heat map and you will see another problem for small rural countries... there isn't enough infrastructure to carry all that green energy from the remote windy places back to the Big Smoke. Windmills and solar panels have popped up like mushrooms here thanks to the bizarrely generous FIT scheme and hey presto the grid is overloaded. Maybe Zuck could stump up for a few underground HT cables and an energy storage system? (see the fine Register article on the Welsh mountain)

  4. John Sturdy
    FAIL

    It's worse than that

    Ireland still burns peat in power stations, thus digging up what is rapidly becoming a scarce ecosystem, and producing sod all power from it, if you'll pardon the pun.

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: It's worse than that

      peat generation is so inefficient as to be negligible. It's an employment scheme and was supposed to be phased out.

      1. Shane McCarrick

        Re: It's worse than that

        It is getting phased out- however, it'll probably be another decade before the final station is decommissioned.

    2. Shane McCarrick

      Re: It's worse than that

      A lot of the peat burning stations have been decommissioned- in favour of gas. Some (such as Lanesborough) had really cool demolition ceremonies. We were supposed to be fully free of peat burning by 2018/2020- however, its acknowledged the final stations may have to continue producing power until 2025-2030 (this is considered a reasonable time frame).

  5. Buzzword

    Wave goodbye

    Has wave power actually been successfully installed anywhere, other than in test sites?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wave goodbye

      At any scale, no. My employers were investors in a couple of large scale wave power technologies, but we've had to back off because there's no happy medium of low cost, reliability and durability, despite several million quid being thrown at those problems.

      And the actual output is poor because what we're dealing with is very low head hydro, made worse by the low inefficiency of converting wave motion to some rotary force able to drive an alternator. That means that you'd need vast numbers of <insert solution here> covering large areas of the sea, and that in turn multiplies the shortcomings mentioned above.

      And there's another problem, that the useable mid size wave power is very strongly coordinated with wind speed, and wind power is (relatively!) cheaper and easier to produce. So you'd be better off looking to lower the cost of offshore wind than trying to make jiggley squiggly squashy floatey things reliable and durable.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Re: Wave goodbye

        I have found jiggley squiggly squashy floatey things to be very durable (when not handled too roughly) and I certainly do rely on such when the need arises.

  6. Mage Silver badge
    Pirate

    Fantasy

    Facebook, Apple etc can only use "renewable" source electricity by taking it from existing users, there is basically no ability to add much more. Even what does exist in Ireland can vanish for weeks at a time.

    Most Irish Electricity has to be made by imported fossil fuels or imported.

    The real reason for Ireland is likelihood of weak implementation of EU regulations, followed by Irish corporation tax, followed by the new transatlantic cables (Mayo and T junction off Cork).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fantasy

      If Iceland was in the EU I'll bet Apple, Facebook et al would be flocking there to build datacenters since their geothermal power is effectively unlimited and arguably even greener than wind/solar. Ireland is probably the best of the various EU options in terms of the labor force they need, renewable energy they desire, and a climate that minimize the cooling demand for a datacenter.

      The tax issue for Ireland is irrelevant since the datacenter is an expense, not directly income generating. They'd rather have it in a HIGH tax rate location, all else being equal, to reduce their tax bill there.

  7. Mage Silver badge

    irrelevant since the datacenter is an expense?

    Really?

    So how come most of Amazon's profit is from them?

    Why build them to sell cloud services?

    Yes, they have a running cost, but that just reduces the lots of profit they earn.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: irrelevant since the datacenter is an expense?

      Amazon's datacenters are an expense. The fact they use to sell services that generate income is irrelevant from a tax perspective - the services revenue is booked in the country in which those services are sold, the expense for the datacenters is booked in the country where the datacenter resides. If all they had was datacenters in the US which they used to sell services in the UK they'd show a big loss in the US and a lot of profit in the UK.

      Anyway, Amazon earns next to no profit, and some quarters shows a loss. It isn't like they're raking it, though you couldn't tell that from their inflated stock price.

  8. itzman
    Facepalm

    please wait.....

    ....our servers are currently underclocked due to lack of wind.....

    1. Oengus
      Joke

      Re: please wait.....

      I don't know why but this came to mind immediately... I F*** in your general direction

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tax diversion schemes

    Obviously, it is cheaper to get infinite green electricity than pay a fair share of tax.

    The tax deficit is for the masses who thus end up digging for the black stuff just to stay warm.

  10. Slx

    Ireland's major issue around green energy all come down to NIMBYism. It's the polar opposite to an authoritarian state and large electricity infrastructure projects are being blocked and delayed by objections to overhead infrastructure like pylons and turbines.

    We've a situation emerging where you've scattered development in rural areas driven by a notion that everyone should be able to live anywhere they like, regardless of infrastructural requirements to support them and that that infrastructure must be provided but totally invisibility and without the use of pylons, power lines, turbines or any kind of mobile mast.

    We've people on the one hand demanding green energy and on the other objecting to power lines and wind farms while driving electric cars...

    I've had huge augments with people who come out with statements like "all other countries have put their entire electricity grids underground to avoid cancer risks."

    Don't me wrong, I'm all for balanced and sustainable development but we can't just pretend we don't need windfarms.

    These same people see nothing wrong with agriculture which has totally modified Ireland's natural landscapes. Those pretty green fields and neat hedge rows didn't happen naturally and the emissions from agriculture are enormous. Likewise, the country is dotted with quait relics of Victorian infrastructure like railways which, despite scarring the landscape are seen as endearing and pretty.

    The same people moan endlessly about lack of rural broadband but will complain about the dangers of LTE towers that can provide ultra fast rural broadband while inhaling smoke from their quaint wood or turf burning stove. LTE signals have no known health risks while partially burnt organic material is potentially carcinogenic.

    The way some people go on you'd think windfarms were slightly worse than smoking a pipe while doing a tour of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

    Ultimately, this is what will choke off development of these kinds of data centre investments in rural Ireland.

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