[HACC] Cooperation with renewable energy companies

[Raphael Weniger]

Hi Tim,

thanks for the ideas and hints!

I did not check the prices of green energy providers and assumed they
are slightly more expensive. Additionally with the potentially high
energy consumption (as you mentioned servers that run 24/7) and the
little financial means hacker and maker spaces have every cent counts.
A quick comparison of Stadtwerke München and Naturstrom:
Naturstrom: 28,75 ct/kWh
SWM: 26,05 ct/kWh (including the "Öko-Option": 26,29 ct/kWh)
But that is for private customers.

Besides checking the real prices and what the "Öko-Option" of energy
providers really means, maybe it would be interesting to create some
kind of checklist, tutorial and/or collection of projects for hacker
spaces how to get more sustainable concerning energy usage.
You seem to have quite some experience and ideas what to do. Do you know
any projects from single hacker/maker spaces? Are you interested in
helping me setting up a wiki-page concerning that topic?

One thing I did not research yet is, if there is some kind of
sustainability sweet spot between local/decentralized energy production
with additional overhead for every installation of a system and
centralized systems that potentially have less overhead. I mean overhead
and sweet spot concerning sustainability not (just) financially.
Gets the additional overhead smaller the longer those systems run? Maybe
it's just an initial overhead?

A little off topic:
That thought applies not just to energy production but also to
decentralized networks (if every person that has an Email address runs
it's own Email server the sum of the overhead energy needed would be
huge). As a hacker I think it would be great if the infrastructure would
be more decentralized (and therefor in a sense sustainable?) but maybe
at some point the energy overhead is just too big?

Best regards
Raphael

Am 27.04.19 um 17:46 schrieb Tim Alder:
> Hello Raphael,
> the only kind of cooperations/meetings I know from is
> https://barcamp-renewables.de/ with SMA as sponsor.
> 
> (A lot of companies  that are working in this field are not
> in best conditions after years of wrong politics in Germany. )
> 
> EWS-Schönau have with the "Schönerauer Stromseminar" also a nice event:
> https://www.youtube.com/user/ewsschoenau/videos
> 
> Other possible cooperation partners are local cooperatives
> (Energiegenossenschaften).
> They are sometimes happy if somebody works on monitoring and data
> management.
> 
> It's the decision of each hackerspace to switch to an real green energy
> provider,
> which are often cheaper than standard providers. So I don't see that
> it's necessary to ask for an special price.
> 
> Also an (visible) option to bring solar power to an hacker space are
> plug-in Photovoltaik panels.
> They fall drastically in price and you can get them now for 400€:
> http://www.pvplug.de/marktuebersicht/
> 
> More effect to reduce CO2-emmisions of an hackerspace can have a active
> energy management.
> There are two things in my eyes important:
> *The server-rack and its air conditioning
> *Heating of the space 
> The numbers of LEDs are in my eyes not so important, so the space can
> further looks beautiful.
> It could be helpful to define reduction targets, so that's perhaps a way
> to switch off some old inefficient servers.
> 
> Best regard
> Tim alias Kolossos
> 
> 
> Am 26.04.19 um 19:36 schrieb Raphael Weniger:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> does someone know if there is some kind of cooperation between renewable
>> energy companies like Greenpeace Energy or Naturstrom (Germany) and
>> Hacker and/or Maker Spaces?
>>
>> If not, I can try to get in contact with them or even the federal
>> association in Germany [1]. I'm curious if they can offer some kind of
>> special price conditions for those Spaces. Hacker and Maker Spaces are
>> quite energy hungry and often almost charitable organizations (sometimes
>> also in a legal sense). For renewable energy companies that translates
>> into earning some more money and supporting a good cause. On the other
>> hand Hacker and Maker Spaces can become more sustainable.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Raphael
>>
>> [1] https://www.bee-ev.de
>>
>>
> 
> 

-- 
Raphael Weniger
www.acousticcloud.net
raphael.weniger at acousticcloud.net
https://acousticcloud.net/pub-key.asc
8861 EC34 029A 648B CE35
B0F6 E176 0613 C335 807A
https://mx.skweed.de/#/@cAkwNLHysr:matrix.org

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://hacc.uber.space/pipermail/hacc/attachments/20190428/40d9d809/attachment.sig>