Oh oh, Solar Panels on your roof may increase the risk of fire damage

I was having my annual backflow testing on the sprinkler system in the house.  The City of Redmond where I live requires sprinklers for my house, office, and beach house which means I have backflow prevention valves and i found a reasonable cost done by Linda Pfeiffer.

Linda Pfeiffer

A Women’s Touch LLC

State Certified B4287

Backflow Technician

Licensed, Insured and Bonded

When chatting with Linda we were discussing roofs and fire departments risk to getting up there, then she said the big thing now is the solar panels are changing how fire departments can fight a fire and whether they will be electrocuted.

Here is a story of a warehouse with solar panels was quite possibly completely destroyed because the environmentally sensitive solar panels.  Whatever environmental impact was accumulated was most likely undone by the fire.

Firefighters battling the massive 11-alarm blaze at the Dietz & Watson distribution center in South Jersey faced an unlikely foe during the fight -- solar panels.

A solar array with more than 7,000 photovoltaic panels lined the roof of the nearly 300,000 square-foot refrigeration facility which served as a temporary storage center for the company’s deli meats and cheeses. But the panels, while environmentally sustainable and cost-saving, may have led to the complete destruction of the warehouse.

Fighting the fire under bright blue skies Sunday, Delanco Fire Chief Ron Holt was forced to keep firefighters from attacking the blaze from the roof because of electrocution concerns.

"With all that power and energy up there, I can't jeopardize a guy’s life for that,” said Holt. Those electrocution fears combined with concerns of a collapse forced firefighters to simply spray the building with water and foam from afar.

Ken Willette from the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit that develops standards for firefighting, says electrocution is one of the hazards firefighters are increasingly facing fighting blazes at structures where solar panels are deployed.

We don't often hear of a data center fire.  When there is a fire, the electrocution risk from the UPS batteries will make people cautious.  Can you imagine how the fire fighting changes if the roof is covered with solar panels?

“The new paradigm is firefighters might encounter building systems they have little or no knowledge of,” Willette said. “It used to be homes and commercial buildings had roofs and walls and heating and ventilation systems that the fire service was used to dealing with…modern technology, both in building construction and these other alternative energy systems, have changed that.”

Something to think about when you are deciding whether to put solar panels on your roof or an adjacent piece of property.

RMS Launches its First Data Center - Green with 100% renewable energy

This last week I was in Iceland at a media/analyst event sponsored by RMS, Datapipe, and Verne Global.  Honestly, I spent so much time talking to so many different people, I find it easier to reference the public disclosures than to write on my own. :-)

The #1 topic of interest to me is RMS as a customer choose its first data center to be a green one with 100% renewable with Datapipe in Verne Global's data center.

Here is the press release from the customer, RMS.  This is RMS's first data center, a green one with 100% renewable energy.

RMS Launches First Global Data Center, Taps Verne Global and Datapipe for 100 Percent Green Computing Environment

Verne Global and Datapipe deliver renewably powered high-performance computing for RMS’ revolutionary exposure and risk management environment

KEFLAVIK, Iceland – Sept. 19, 2013 – Verne Global today announced that RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe risk modeling firm, is deploying its RMS Cloud from Verne Global’s data center campus in Iceland. Powered by the RMS Cloud, RMS(one)TM, the insurance industry’s first real-time exposure and risk management environment, will empower insurers and reinsurers to execute risk modeling, underwriting and portfolio management on a single, open platform hosted in a 100 percent green environment. RMS(one) TM will leverage Datapipe’s Stratosphere® high-performance computing (HPC) green cloud platform for peak loads.

“With RMS(one) running on the RMS Cloud we are giving our customers unprecedented freedom, business agility and competitive advantage by allowing them to execute on their entire exposure and risk management strategies,” said Bobby Soni, chief platform and services officer at RMS. “RMS(one) offers the industry’s first secure, reliable and scalable computing platform coupled with big data infrastructure, which streamlines our customers’ modeling, underwriting and portfolio management processes.” 

Here is one post from ZDNet's David Chernicoff.

RMS demonstrates the importance of the private cloud

Summary: Lack of reliability in Amazon EC2 a major motivator in private cloud investment

By David Chernicoff for Five Nines: The Next Gen Datacenter |September 20, 2013 -- 12:51 GMT (05:51 PDT)

 

When RMS looked at deploying the betas of their cutting edge insurance risk management solution,RMSone, to their customers they realized that the cloud-based service would be significantly less valuable if it wasn’t incredibly reliable.

Here in DatacenterKnowledge's post from Rich Miller.

Data Center Customers Warming to Iceland

September 19th, 2013By: Rich Miller

Verne Global CEO Jeff Monroe calls its Iceland-based data center “the ultimate energy hedge” for its ability to provide long-term price visibility through 12 to 20-year contracts. (Photo: Colleen Miller)

and a post from Colleen Miller.

Free Cooling in Iceland: A Closer Look at the Verne Global Data Center

September 19th, 2013By: Colleen Miller

 

•  KEFLAVIK, ICELAND - Verne Global, which announced a cloud launch this week by client Datapipe and its client risk-modeling specialist RMS, is uniquely positioned from a geographical and business perspective. Verne is taking advantage of the geography of Iceland to operate a data center that is run on 100 percent renewable energy sources, and leverages the chilly climate in Iceland, located just below the Arctic Circle. The geography and geology of Iceland allows the local power companies to use natural resources such as hydro power and geothermal resources to produce electricity. Data Center Knowledge took a tour of this unique data center facility this week. Our photo feature gives insight into the facility, which is being deployed with a modular approach, and seeks to draw clients from both the United States and European countries. SeeVerne Global Data Center Leverages Iceland Power, Cooling.

Google increases its Renewable Energy 73% which means? more data center capacity?

Google has a blog post on its adding more wind power.  Adding 240MW on top 330MW = 570MW of wind power.  Which means???  possibly Google is adding 73% data center capacity over the next year or so.  Why else would Google who is carbon neutral add another 240MW?  The new wind farm capacity comes on line by end of 2014.  

Another windy day in Texas: a new power purchase agreement

9/17/13 | 9:00:00 AM

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

As part of our quest to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, we’ve agreed to purchase the entire output of the 240 MW Happy Hereford wind farm outside of Amarillo, Texas. This agreement represents our fifth long-term agreement and our largest commitment yet; we’ve now contracted for more than 570 MW of wind energy, which is enough energy to power approximately 170,000 U.S. households.

The Happy Hereford wind farm, which is expected to start producing energy in late 2014, is being developed by Chermac Energy, a small, Native American-owned company based in Oklahoma. The wind farm will provide energy to the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the regional grid that serves our Mayes County, Okla. data center.

Iceland Hydropower plant Irafoss tour

Yesterday was geothermal, today is a hydropower tour.  One of the questions I asked the maintenance crew is how often they shut down.  Every year 3 days.  Every three years, for about a week.  Every 6, 9, and then 12 years the shut downs are longer.  With shut down being up to 6 weeks every 12 years.  The grid is highly available, but that doesn't mean there aren't maintenance events.

The facility had an access tunnel at the lowest level.  This photo came out nicely with 12800 ISO f/4 1/30.  No flash, just really big 12800 ISO.  Love my Canon 6D.

There is a crane to lift gear in the generator room.

Here are some of rigging and tools for the crane.

The above is the magnetizing of the coils.  Below are the generators.

Power is transmitted at 132kV and 220kV.

Here is a video of the water leaving the generators.  There is pressure in the discharge area to reduce the pressure differential from inlet to discharge.  One of the reasons for reducing the pressure change is too high a differential can create damaging resonances.

Oops, People are finding out that electric cars create a peak load when plugged in

MIT Technology Review has a post on something that is pretty obvious to a data center crowd.  Plugging in electric cars can create stress on a local circuit.  In the data center users don't think about at the local power constraints on a circuit.  Having an even distribution of power use on circuits is ideal.

The trouble arises when electric car owners install dedicated electric vehicle charging circuits. In most parts of California, charging an electric car at one of those is the equivalent of adding one house to the grid, which can be a significant additional burden, since a typical neighborhood circuit has only five to 10 houses. In San Francisco, where the weather is cool and air conditioning is rarely used, the peak demand of a house is much lower than in the hotter parts of California. As a result, the local grid is sized for a much smaller load. A house in San Francisco might only draw two kilowatts of power at times of peak demand, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. In comparison, a new electric vehicle on a dedicated circuit could draw 6.6 kilowatts—and up to 20 kilowatts in the case of an optional home fast charger for a Tesla Model S.

I found another post on the same Southern California Edison report and this one compared to the MIT Technology Review pointed to the SCE report which is here.

The most useful data I found to give you an idea of what is going on with Southern California Edison's ability to support car charging is the rate structure set up for electric vehicles.  You would expect that the use of electric vehicles pushes most people to the Tier 2 rate.  Charging off-peak vs. midnight -6a is three times more.  Charging during 10a - 6p vs. midnight  - 6a is 5 times more expensive during the summer.

I would say the Utility is driving the a more manageable electric load by creating the financial incentives.  When people see their electricity bill it will get them to adapt their behaviors.

There is also a rate plan just for electric vehicles.