由太阳能电池板驱动的绿色数据中心：
值得所有炒作吗？
Solar power is quickly becoming the hot new topic for the green 数据中心， 更好 数据中心运营. Nothing else quite shouts “I’m going green” like installing a couple hundred acres of 太阳能板 挨着你的肚子饿，耗油大 数据中心. Few things are more capable of blatantly making you look like you’re environmentally conscious. In an age where everyone is trying to care about the planet, it seems that installing a solar array is the industries way of doing it. But how effective and efficient are these 太阳能板 真？
Apple，Facebook，Cisco，Google，EBay和Emerson Network Power都在 绿色 潮流。从表面上看，它非常有意义。这是最终的可再生资源。太阳照耀着，每天都在照耀着它，并且在未来数百万年里，它将每天继续照耀着它。每瓦转移到 数据中心 绝对不会影响我们其他人今天或明天将要接受的阳光。因此，如果您处在阳光明媚的气候中，那肯定是明智的选择吗？
但是这些 太阳能电池板 鉴于当前的经济学 太阳能 and the volume of power required to support a modern data center? James Hamilton of Amazon Web Services, who often presents on data center economics at industry conferences, challenges the wisdom of solar in a new blog post.
“我爱 太阳能，但在仔细思考几个引人注目的地方 数据中心 的部署 太阳能，我真的在认真提出保留意见，认为这是减少数据中心环境影响的途径。”汉密尔顿写道。 “我只是无法进行数学运算，发现自己想知道这些大型太阳能发电场是否真的在一个糟糕的主意与纯粹的营销之间，对环境的影响纯粹是光学的。”
Solar power isn’t widely used in data centers because it requires a huge installation of panels to produce even a small fraction of the amount of energy required by most facilities. While some arrays, like the ones located at Facebook’s Oregon Facility, efficiently provide power for office space rather than the actual servers, it still seems to be a bit of a marketing and PR ploy. Even when considering Apple’s proposed monster 20 megawatt, 171 acre, facility in North Caroline, the output just doesn’t add up. Hamilton recently estimated that all of those panels on their 171 acres, only contribute around 3.2 MW to the data center’s power requirements; requirements that Hamilton calculates to be around 78 MW. That’s a measly 4%, which really is nothing at all.
那么，从营销角度看，太阳能的经济学原理是什么？好像一夜之间，这不是偶然的， 太阳能电池板 在Facebook受到绿色和平组织的殴打之后，魔术般地出现了。绿色和平组织发起了备受瞩目的“ Unfriend Dirty Coal”运动，以抗议其Prineville工厂电力采购中的可再生能源数量少。甚至苹果公司似乎也无法安抚绿色和平组织。绿色和平组织使用其“新iPad”的推出来抨击该公司，因为该公司依赖于当地公用事业公司的煤炭能源。
绿色和平组织高级政策分析师加里·库克（Gary Cook）表示：“苹果公司可以通过风能和太阳能等可再生能源为iCloud应用最新iPad所体现的创新精神。” “或者，如果坚持使用煤炭，煤炭可能会继续落后于其他行业，煤炭是一种19世纪的技术，会毒害社区和气候。”
Like Hamilton, Cook argues that the solar array is inconsequential given the overall energy used by Apple. “While Apple has been more than happy to draw the media’s attention to how large the solar farm is, it has kept its lips stapled firmly shut when it comes to just how much coal will still be required to power the cloud.”
So, why the enthusiasm for solar? It certainly isn’t making an impact on the energy bills and greenhouse emissions. And definitely isn’t impressing Greenpeace by any means. So it seems all that is left is purely the marketing and image value. Going 绿色 makes companies look good. They can put a check in the cute little “green” box. And customers, consumers, and law makers think they care.
