Cheap and energy efficient? Surely not!
MovinCool, a brand of Japan's DENSO Corporation, has taken the wraps off the CM25, a 25,000BTU/h, ceiling-mounted server room cooling unit that comes in just shy of the $7,000 mark. Among its many eco-friendly features are the variable-speed inverter compressor and inverter fan motors. Being able to tune the output of air-moving fans (versus operating full blast) like i/o Data Centers does is one way to save on energy costs.
Today, Solar Components debuted a personal solar charger that, to put it bluntly, sounds too good to be true.
Called the Joos Orange (yes, as in orange juice), the 8.58 inch by 5.77 inch slab contains a 5,400mAh replaceable lithium-ion battery pack. Also nestled into its 0.79 inch-thick enclosure is energy management circuitry that promises to help eke out precious energy from less-than-direct sunlight. According to the company, the charger produces 20 times more energy than other chargers on the market, and with an optional reflector kit, that figure jumps to 30 times. And all for $100 when it starts shipping this June.
Perhaps anticipating that BS meters would blare in alarm, Jamie Bullen, CEO and co-founder of Solar Components said in a statement:
"Solar Components makes the best solar charger in the world. We recognize that we're throwing down the gauntlet by making this claim, but the fact of the matter is that most of the personal solar power devices on the market today are woefully inadequate. The fact that someone can have a personal solar device in direct sunlight for an hour and only power 5 to 20 minutes of talk time for a standard cell phone just isn't acceptable."
Normally I'd roll my eyes and move on, but this line in the press release indicates that they might be onto something are aren't afraid to let others kick the tires on their tech:
Solar Components has a limited supply of final pre-production units of the Joos Orange available today for editorial testing and evaluation.
Will it live up to those claims? Looks like we'll soon find out.
Enough to pay for a huge LED retrofit, at least.
Using a financing system similar to the "soft loan" "Warner homes, greener homes" program being launched in the UK to fund energy efficient home upgrades, New England Energy Management is upgrading 50,000 fixtures at Ford's Detroit Campus. Ford pays nothing upfront, and will instead pay for the retrofit with the energy savings over five years.
And there's another wrinkle. While LEDs are pretty energy efficient to start with, the units will be paired with automatic dimming systems to maximize the savings. Cool!
Bloom Energy had a big week between the airing of its 60 Minutes segment on Sunday and the official unveiling on Wednesday. Thanks to some heavy-duty backers, big name customers and a gift for publicity, the fuel cell firm kicked it off in style. But as the buzz wanes, what kind of market will the Bloom Energy Server face? Will investors recoup the $400 million they fronted to get the venture off the ground?
Below are some choice links and insightful analysis on Bloom Energy and its impact on the cleantech marketplace.
Why Bloom Energy Is & Isn't the Google of Greentech - Earth2Tech
Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers venture capitalist John Doerr, who led an investment in Bloom Energy and also in search engine giant Google, made the comparison as he took the stage during the launch event on the eBay campus. "This is like the Google IPO," said Doerr. Presumably, he meant the excitement and anticipation in the room, but also the potential for the type of returns that Bloom could bring to Kleiner.
Bloom box debut: More IPO than CO2 - Fortune Brainstorm Tech Blog
So if Bloom's magic boxes are still not cost-effective nationwide -- if they remain a niche product still in beta testing -- why today's star-studded coming-out party? Sridhar says his customers were so excited by the product they pushed him to unveil his creation now. Though they were clearly jazzed about the chance to brag about their green cred -- and moments at yesterday's event devolved into an orgy of self-congratulation -- many observers think Bloom had another motive: To prime the pump to go public.
Doing The Math On Bloom Energy - Forbes
The unsubsidized cost would be 13-14 cents/kWh, with about 9 cents/kWh from the capital costs of the Bloom box and 5 cents/kWh from natural gas costs, according to Lux Research. If natural gas prices rise or fall 50% (gas prices are often volatile), overall price would fluctuate from 11.5-12.5 cents/kWh to 20.5-21.5 cents/kWh. That price is still too high to compete in most markets with retail electricity without subsidy. However, this is the first generation, and if Bloom can bring prices down (and/or natural gas prices are stable/low), there could be a significant market for this fuel cell.
Much-Touted Bloom Fuel Cell Still Too Spendy - Wired.com
In fact, a long-term R&D collaboration between the Department of Energy and multiple solid-oxide fuel-cell manufacturers, the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance, estimates that fuel cells will need to cost $700 per kilowatt of peak capacity to compete unsubsidized with the grid. Bloom's product costs 10 times that.
Bloom Energy By the Numbers - Earth2Tech
Carbon reduction: Bloom says that customers can get between a 40 and 100 percent reduction in their carbon footprint as compared with the U.S. grid, depending on if they are using natural gas or renewable methane. Michael Kanellos of GreentechMedia asked Sridhar during the Q&A session for the math on for 1 ton of CO2 emitted how much fuel would be used, and Sridhar didn't provide an answer.
Video: Q&A With Bloom Energy's Founder, Next Gen Fuel Cells and More - Greentech Media
There's an interesting connection between Bloom and Hara, the carbon management software company. Kleiner Perkins invested in both companies and both listed Coca-Cola as a signature client. In fact, Fortune 500 friends played an integral part of the launches of both companies. It gives the companies credibility. However, if Kleiner relies on the same names too much, it may begin to take the sheen off the impact.
...and from yours truly:
Bloom Energy and Data Centers - Perfect Together? (subscription required) - GigaOM Pro
Undoubtedly, many are wondering if a Bloom Energy Server, aka Bloom Box, will satisfy their growing energy needs. Sure, it will help them meet their carbon reduction goals and may even resolve some thorny siting issues, but let's zero in on two of the factors that matter most to the folks that run data centers: availability and cost.
Have you come across some interesting coverage? Share it in the comments!
Photo Credit: Bloom Energy
There's not much purpose to RoboSteel's 8-foot sculpture inspired by the iconic Alien Queen from the Alien film franchise except to look cool. Oh, and it was made with 1,200 pounds of recycled steel which was cleverly and artfully pieced together to create a visual feast. Just look at all that detail!
Photo credit: RoboSteel
Sensors are becoming critical to maximizing energy consumption in data centers, but IBM feels that it can spread the love to other areas. Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau writes:
IBM isn't building sensors, but it expects to see wide adoption of sensor technology that can cover an office complex or a city like a blanket. The sensors could gather information about the health of physical systems and, for instance, discover leaks in pipes by detecting changes in the environment near the pipes. Sensors in manhole covers could detect problems there as well.
Neat, right? However, for such a vision to become reality, many of those sensors will need to communicate wirelessly and have long-lived on-board stores of energy. Or put simply, batteries that are in it for the long haul. Fortunately, there's good news on that front from Michigan.
A startup called Ambiq Micro won a $27,000 grant at the Michigan Business Challenge hosted by The University of Michigan's Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Sure it's peanuts compared to some of the awards and funding rounds I typically cover, but this one could have a huge impact. According to Lora Kolodny at the You're the Boss blog at The New York Times:
Ambiq Micro plans to sell low-power microprocessors that could substantially extend the battery life of a range of tiny wireless devices. The start-up's technology could be used in smart credit cards, computers, sensors that control temperature or detect motion in smart homes and buildings, and a variety of medical and mobile devices.
The day may soon arrive that you can unbox a sensor, pop it into place regardless of how far its from a power source and not have to worry about it for years. Also imagine being able to turn your "vintage" digs into a futuristic smart home without paying for a costly rewiring job.
Excited yet?
A green PC is the sum of its parts. Credit: bit-tech.net
A "green" PC isn't really energy efficient if it consumes less electricity at the expense of performance. That's the subject of bit-tech.net's excellent article that tackles the green claims often made by PC component makers. By pitting various PC parts against one another, Richard Swinburne draws up a pretty good picture of how to balance energy savings without sacrificing computational power.
Take, for instance, hard drives vs. SSDs.
Surprisingly, the SSD doesn't save us that much power either - just 2 - 3W again on top of the 5,400 - 5,900RPM drives at idle and when writing, however compared to the performance drives from Seagate and Western Digital the difference is a more considerable 7W per drive. You're unlikely to have many SSDs unless you're in enterprise storage, where 7W a pop (or more for 10 - 15k SAS drives) means power savings abound.
Beyond storage, a lot also hinges on the type of processor (AMD or Intel), memory, power supply and motherboard. Selecting the wrong one can not only blow the efficiency gains of the rest, but also fail to deliver the performance boost you'd expect by pumping more electricity through them. And vice versa.
It goes to show that an energy efficient -- yet very capable -- rig is truly the sum of its parts.
Bloom Energy Server, eBay Installation - Credit: Bloom Energy
Bloom Energy's fuel cell is making waves this week, starting with a 60 Minutes profile and culminating in today's official coming out party. (FYI: My colleague Katie at Earth2Tech has some excellent live coverage.) One thing you might have noticed is how Bloom is branding its fuel cell as an "Energy Server." Is it a smart move?
Yes.
The machinery traditionally used to generate electricity conjures visions of industrial dinosaurs, both in terms of the tech driving it and its size. Think turbines, generators, engines and the sort. Contrast that with a server, a tidy machine that's neatly stacked in the pristine racks of a data center. Servers are the workhorses that give the Internet life, brokering e-commerce transactions, disseminating Tweets, logging status updates... you get the idea. It's not hard to see how aligning Bloom's fuel cell with the high-tech IT realm -- inevitable, really, considering the company's pedigree -- is a clever strategy for the cleantech company.
As you're undoubtedly aware by now, the growth of web services and cloud computing is driving demand for power-hungry data centers, which will place added demand on the grid. And while Google may not have warmed to the idea of deploying "Bloom Boxes" in its data centers yet ("box" is another common term used for a server), eBay certainly appears smitten by the carbon reduction technology for its IT operations. Heck, it might even be the (pricey) solution to Facebook's coal-powered problem (sub. req'd).
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's Bob Muglia mentions that even facing VMware's huge headstart Hyper-V is gaining marketshare. Of course, specifics are lacking, but he did let slip that it's making substantial gains in the SMB market, which is unsurprising considering that the market's traditionally been one of the company's strong suits. Looks like a significant number of SMBs haven't been taking the advice of Dell's Erik Dithmer's to skip virtualization tech, to Microsoft's delight.
He also let slip this very interesting nugget captured by Eric Savitz of Barron's:
Finding that many companies to do side-by-side adoption of MSFT's Hyper V and VMware. In side-by-side, we have a 90% win rate, he says. What we are seeing, he says, is doing side-by-side as customers add incremental servers to existing VMware installations.
Muglia also shares an interesting statistic, revealing that roughly 20 percent of all servers shipped are virtualized. And while enterprise adoption skews higher, it still means that the vast majority of servers are likely running underutilized. But Microsoft doesn't seem to be sweating it. Why? Azure, the software giant's cloud computing platform.
While betting on the cloud might pay off, it's not without its risks. In his report on Azure at GigaOM Pro (sub. req'd), Derrick Harris zeroes in on a potential speedbump to widespread adoption: trust. Can Microsoft win over customers in an arena where openness rules? That's just one of the issues it has to wrestle with.
Interesting data from Global Industry Analysts today. According to the research firm, electronic medical records (EMR) will comprise a $5.4 billion market in North America by 2015. In Europe, that number is $1.4 billion.
Why does it matter? Obviously, updating hospitals and healthcare concerns to handle the data will be an IT-intensive effort, which might also prove to be a boon for SaaS providers and cloud computing firms that already know (or should know) a thing or two about running energy efficient data centers. The best part? Hospitals and doctor's offices stand to save a ton on paper, not just buying it, but also filing it, storing it, and eventually disposing of it.
According to the press release, below are some of the firms to watch for as the market racks up those billions. (Note the healthy sprinkling of IT companies.)
Key players profiled in the report include Agfa-Gevaert Ltd, Ascribe plc, Cambio Healthcare Systems, Cerner Corporation, CompuGROUP HOLDING AG, Computer Programs and Systems, Inc, EBIT AET S.p.A., Eclipsys Corporation, Egton Medical Information Systems Limited, Epic Systems Corporation, GE Healthcare, Hewlett Packard Company, IBA Health (Europe) Ltd, IMS MAXIMS plc, Indra Sistemas SA, iSoft Group plc, McKesson Corporation, MDS Medical Software, MedPlus, Inc, Medical Information Technology, Inc, Medasys SA, Nexus AG, Noemalife SpA, Profdoc AB, QuadraMed Corporation, SAP (UK) Limited, Siemens Medical Solutions GSD GmbH, and System C Healthcare plc, among others.
It will be interesting to see if the estimates change if and when healthcare legislation wends its way through Congress and whether records portability finally takes off.
Image Credit: Flickr user virtualis - CC
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