The Electrical Usage So Far This Summer For Linux Benchmarking

[starshipeleven]

x2, solar doesn't make economic sense for a homeowner in the majority of cases. Not to mention the regular cleaning of the panels to maintain their output - most homes in the US have high angled roofs not easily (safely) accessible by the average homeowner, so that means paying someone to come clean them regularly.

The few people I know who have them, are all wealthy or upper upper middle class families who have large disposable income, and are doing it mainly as an enviro fashion statement, not because it makes any sort of economic sense.

The only places where solar is truly practical, are remote deserts and mountaintops where utility electric service simply isn't available, the cost of making it available far exceeds the costs of a solar installation.

x100.
Solar is a good choice only in space/orbit (x3 output because no atmosphere, 24/7 coverage, no orientation issues, no weather, no random bs), for a planet's surface it's half-decent only if in large installations that can babysit it properly (changing orientation to follow the sun, batteries to store excess power, keeping the damn panels clean, praying it's not cloudy).

I'd take a half-decent RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) over panels any day.

[bridgman]

x100.Solar is a good choice only in space/orbit (x3 output because no atmosphere, 24/7 coverage, no orientation issues, no weather, no random bs)

Surprisingly enough there were no Google hits for "phoronix in space".

[stiiixy]

Sounds like Mick's got a lot of investigating with his state and power company to do =D

So
Direct DC power supply reducing wasted power
Local incentives
Sunny time frames
Mixed technology
Lifetime on parts, and cleaning
Cost savings on self-install


And you guys pay out 11c per KW/h =| We're getting slapped at 27c+ and it's going up rapidly.

[caligula]

I wanted to convert my own workstation actually, so yeah, I've got around 500 Watts of stuff at peak consumption that I'd like to be covered, possibly moar.
I was wondering about simply chaining multiple picoPSUs+bricks but something kept ringing alarms in my head.

The issue with disks is that they require a significant amount of watts on spinup (mostly on 12V as that's what the motor uses), like 15-20 watts per disk, and this limits a bit the number, unless your board features staggered spinup option (server motherboards do), or you do some hardware gimmick that keeps power cut off to groups of disks and then powers them up after a set time.

I'd recommend a bonded 2 x gigabit connection to a file server via iSCSI or NBD if you need the bandwidth and tons of disk space. I don't know of any gaming motherboards that support PUIS/PM2. Nowadays even a single gigabit link combined with bcache might do the trick assuming you use SSDs in the workstation. But it really depends. Sometimes you just need all the bandwidth there is.

[starshipeleven]

I'd recommend a bonded 2 x gigabit connection to a file server via iSCSI or NBD if you need the bandwidth and tons of disk space. I don't know of any gaming motherboards that support PUIS/PM2. Nowadays even a single gigabit link combined with bcache might do the trick assuming you use SSDs in the workstation. But it really depends. Sometimes you just need all the bandwidth there is.

That's overengineering, I can simply keep the drives on a different picoPSU as the Sata cable is data-only so they are isolated from the mobo.

My power issues come from the GPU(s), and I was already thinking about a brutal 6-pin PCIe to a 12v independent power source, but I'm afraid to blow something up if I use a bunch of different PSUs as they won't keep the same voltage as the loads on each changes differently.
Only way around that is also masking power pins in pcie slot so that the whole GPU is powered by the power brick and takes 0% power from motherboard and its picoPSU.

Yeah, one day I'm going to do some more tests on this.

[grigi]

[QUOTE=caligula;n890975]
Um I think you have no idea what you're talking about. DC-DC converters are really cheap. For example a 95% efficient 1,5 kW converter from 8-60V to 12V is $16, including shipping.

A DC-DC converter does not a PSU make...
And then you have to spend the time to retrofit everything.
And then, because you are fiddling with everything, there is a good chance something will break.
Also, you then need a DC solar system, which implies batteries and huge AC-DC power supply for when your batteries are running empty.
Oh, and the much thicker cabling to now deliver ~8x the amperage.
The ROI isn't worth it for retro-fitment IMHO

[DDF420]

Does anyone have any experience with fuel cells/hydrogen Electrolyser / photovoltaic systems ? If so opinion?

[caligula]

[QUOTE=grigi;n891214]

Um I think you have no idea what you're talking about. DC-DC converters are really cheap. For example a 95% efficient 1,5 kW converter from 8-60V to 12V is $16, including shipping.

A DC-DC converter does not a PSU make...
And then you have to spend the time to retrofit everything.

DC-DC buck-boost and PicoPSU indeed make a PSU. They can power all the normal desktop systems except the ones with 75+ TDP CPU and 75W GPU (from the PCI-E bus). Maybe with driver tuning you could draw less power from PCI-E. Some systems don't have ATX socket, just 12V DC barrel. Disks, fans, pumps all use 12V.

Also, you then need a DC solar system, which implies batteries and huge AC-DC power supply for when your batteries are running empty.
Oh, and the much thicker cabling to now deliver ~8x the amperage.

A DC solar system? All panels are DC, all batteries are DC. You can wire them directly without DC-AC-DC conversions.

Yes, the current handling becomes a larger problem with 12V DC, but the distances aren't that large and you can split the load so that there are one or more panels per server.

[starshipeleven]

Does anyone have any experience with fuel cells/hydrogen Electrolyser / photovoltaic systems ? If so opinion?

non-cryogenic hydrogen is a bitch to store, as it slowly escapes from enclosed containers due to tiny atomic size, and its density is also VERY low (same reason) so even if you compress it you don't get that much benefit off it.

Also, electrolysis is a horribly energy-intensive process, and fuel cells aren't anywhere as efficient as a battery.

Protip: Buy Tesla's PowerWall, bigass lithium-ion batteries. That's the best-in-class of battery technology right now. Also guaranteed to last a decade. In many places they make more money (i.e. pay themselves back faster) than solar by just recharging at night and discharging at day (if your contract has cheaper energy at night, that is).

[oskar-n]

If cooling is a big cost in the summer, I suggest trying to organize the racks so that the hot exhaust air is brought straight outside by a duct.
I guess you need to move things around a bit hand have temporary partition walls setup in the sumer time and then an exhaust fan and duct placed properly.