An investigation into the use of hybrid solar power and cloud service solutions for 24/7 computing

Ogunshile, Emmanuel K A

Abstract

As the human race demands more from computing, the national grids of nations around the world subsequently have to burn additional fossil fuels to meet increased power requirements. The aim of this paper is to investigate ways in which an organisation could reduce its operational costs and therefore be greener through the implementation of either a complete solar solution or a more hybrid mix with cloud computing thrown in. Through the creation of a hypothetical UK based SME we compared solar technology currently in the market in order to understand not only the total investment required but also just how efficient solar technology is, or perhaps is not. We also investigated comparable technology from the three cloud providers (Microsoft, Amazon and Google) to discover whether replacing on-premise hardware with that available in data centres would be more cost-effective than full solar solution or reduce the total amount of solar technology required. Having conducted the research, we found that solar technology is in no way an effective solution for the total replacement of power from the national grid, it can be very pricey to implement especially on the scale of always on computing and is easily affected by the elements-which given the UK as a location is not ideal. It was also discovered that cloud computing is in no way as affordable as it is perhaps made out to be but has the benefits of being considered a) an operational expenditure, b) fully maintained and; c) fully flexible, these all being reasons which help a growing SME expand down the line without unnecessary hardware outlay. Our final recommendations provide a fair cost comparison over the total expected payback period for the solar setup of installing a solar solution to power the entire on-premise systems and simply having a hybrid of both solar and cloud.

• Conference Name: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - CLOSER 2017
• Start Date: Apr 24, 2017
• End Date: Apr 26, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Feb 27, 2017
• Publication Date: Jun 2, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 3, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 6, 2017
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 743-754
• Book Title: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science
• ISBN: 9789897582431
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5220/0006380007430754
• Keywords: cloud services, solar energy, energy storage, digital systems
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/895860
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5220/0006380007430754
• Related Public URLs: http://closer.scitevents.org/
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science - CLOSER 2017
• Contract Date: Jun 3, 2017