the electricity bill
introduction
The big bills for running an ISP (Internet Service Provider) are for electricity, data bandwidth and administrator wages.
The LIC (Larg's Internet Cluster) uses around 400 watts, and 500 if it is a little excited. That kind of usage will create an electricity bill of hundreds of pounds a year.
what it is
Wattage = Volts times Amps (W = E x I). I expect the LIC to scoff about about 2 amps (400 = 230 x 1.7). if absolutely everything is switched on. If one unit costs 24p then I will have to sell my car to run the computers.
Luckily, the real bill will be much cheaper than this. Night-time electricity is cheap, the convection heater will rarely get used and some PCs use half the electricity of others.
estimate the power consumption
My electrician asked me how much power the shed would use. I wanted to be sure I won't trip the safety switch in my consumer unit every time I turn the LIC on.
By far the biggest single item is the convection heater.
| LIC: expected power consumption | ||
|---|---|---|
| electrical appliance | watts | amps |
| computer base unit x 7 |
(140 x 23) 3220
|
(0.6x 23) 13.8
|
| KVM switch x 3 |
(50 x 3) 150
|
(0.2 x 3) 0.6
|
| ethernet switch x 3 |
(50 x 3) 150
|
(0.2 x 3) 0.6
|
| computer 15” CRT Monitor x 3 |
(50 x 3) 150
|
(0.2 x 3) 0.6
|
| convection heater |
2000
|
8.3
|
| music center |
50
|
0.2
|
| lights |
100
|
0.4
|
| desk fan |
50
|
0.2
|
| total |
5870
|
24.7
|
estimate the running cost
| electricity bill | |
|---|---|
| time | cost (£) |
| hour |
1.44
|
| day |
34.56
|
| week |
241.92
|
| year |
12,579.84
|
One computer is not expensive to run. It does not eat units like a pregnant woman eats chocolate. Unfortunately the LIC contains lots of computers and running it will empty your bank account, overheat the power station and melt the Arctic.
The price of electricity is the biggest data centre running cost. My electricity company sells a unit for 24p during peak hours (the daytime). One unit is 1kWh (1,000 watts of electricity used for one hour). The LIC uses up to 6kW if everything is switched on. That's £1.44 an hour. At this rate I would pay five figures to my electricity company each year.
