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Should you worry about power costs

By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial

Posted in Enterprise, Futures, Hardware on October 14, 2008 at 4:31 pm

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Rising oil prices and financial uncertainty might not be the only reasons the electricity that runs your data centre could get more expensive. A cold winter might mean brownouts and blackouts, which means now is a good time to check your UPS capacity.

It took 21 gigawatts to send Marty Back to the Future. Britain generates 70-74gW on its own but with six out of ten nuclear power stations out of action and the usual ‘routine maintenance’ we’re down to about 57gW. That’s fine as long as the weather stays mild, but if we get an early cold snap demand could peak around 62gW. It’s more likely that the energy companies will just buy more electricity from France and put the price up to compensate than that we’ll see energy rationing or unexpected power cuts. Either way, you need to plan ahead.

Should you really worry? Owen Cole, the technical director at F5 Networks, thinks so. “There is currently debate around whether the UK faces a real electricity shortage in the near future. Given that there is credible, independent research to suggest there is a real threat, enterprises have no choice but to incorporate this scenario into their business continuity and disaster recovery planning

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Comments

Comment by Dan Jones - October 16, 2008 on 10:36 am

Indeed power this winter does concern me - I’m considering buying a 2500KVA UPS unit + 2 battery packs, which should give over 10 hours runtime with my servers power supply (I have been given a great price for a 2nd user version, refurbed with new battery packs). This after 3 10 hour + powercuts this year so far….

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