Looking for advice on datacenter electrical/generator

Bill Woodcock woody at pch.net
Sat Apr 5 01:01:36 UTC 2003


      On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Leo Bicknell wrote:
    > 1) Storing natural gas is significantly harder (both in the
    > containers and permiting) than Diesel.

Having done both, I would say that gas is much simpler from a practical
point of view, and a little worse from a permitting point of view.  I'd
rather go through the one-time hassle of the permitting rather than the
continuing hassle of maintaining diesel facilities, any day.

    > It also has less energy density, so it takes more space.

That's true, though it's never been a sufficient difference to be
problematic for me.

    > 2) Having natural gas trucked in, rather than delivered via
    > pipeline is also extremely difficult...
    > It's very easy to get "guaranteed response time" diesel contracts
    > I'd love to know if anyone has even attempted that with Natural Gas
    > delivery by truck.

Yeah, it's no problem.  Certainly no different than deisel in a metro
area, and much easier than diesel in rural areas.  I've never had to ask
for a rush delivery, but I've always been offered delivery the same day
I've called, and I believe the contract guarantees four-hour deliveries
when we need it.  My tank is a 96-hour supply, so that's fine for me.

    > 4) In larger sizes, Diesel gensets are _cheap_.

The only difference between the diesel and gas genset is the carburetor,
which is just different, not more expensive.

                                -Bill





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