Self-generation may be option for datacenters

by Brian Fonseca

April 9, 2001 —

With California's power crisis leaving enterprises worried about electrical power interruptions, Internet datacenter builder U.S. DataPort Inc. is looking to provide its own power for a large facility planned for the city of San Jose, Calif.

U.S. DataPort is not likely to use the power grid of Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. (PG&E) "because, frankly, PG&E just doesn't have the power to give," said Lewis Shandle, senior vice president of U.S. DataPort in San Jose.

By creating its own power for the facility, which could potentially serve 30 percent of the world's Internet traffic, U.S. DataPort is pointing to what may become a more common solution to the looming problem of inadequate electricity for major datacenters and Web-hosting facilities, industry observers said.

William Smith, manager of market-driven load management at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., said enterprises may opt for situations "where instead of just putting in a backup generator, they may decide that they want to be grid-isolated."

When fully developed, the entire U.S. DataPort server-farm facility will probably consume in excess of 150 megawatts. The vendor's five-year facility plan, approved last week by the San Jose City Council, will create approximately 2.2 million square feet of datacenter space.

To power the structure, U.S. DataPort was given a permit to produce approximately 49 megawatts of power from a natural gas-powered generator to serve the site, Shandle said.

U.S. DataPort has a two-year window to come up with other power sources, and is required by the city of San Jose to develop additional sources when the 49 megawatts is no longer sufficient, Shandle said. The company plans to work with the city and the California Energy Commission to develop additional power supplies.

Diesel generators are a potential new source, Shandle said. The company has a similar project in northern Virginia and plans to provide its own power for that facility as well, he said.

Growing environmental concerns and state restrictions on the usage of diesel-burning may have to be curbed until a better alternative is found to combat the energy shortage, said Roberta Gamble, an analyst at San Jose-based consultancy Frost & Sullivan LLP. "You're going to have to keep the businesses running one way or another and this is the short-term answer to that," Gamble said.

"Two or three years from now there will be a number of [power] plants online, but that won't help us now," Gamble added. Until then, customers will perceive advantages to hosting datacenters outside of California, and it could become an attractive selling point for hosting customers wary of the state's energy crisis, she said.

A managed hosting provider in San Antonio, Rackspace, has used California's blackout troubles as a means of recruiting new customers for its Texas-based facility, and has temporarily waived setup fees, company officials said.

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