In the summer, in most locations, you don't want free heat. However, the article states that the unit will vent the heat outside when it isn't desired.
To be eligible for the eRadiator, your home has to have... "an external wall" ... and the external wall is needed for venting (if you "turn off" the eRadiator, the servers don't actually turn off; the heat is just pushed outside).
Admittedly, without active refrigeration this is unlikely to work too well when the temperature outside is over 35 C.
EDIT: they don't mention separate electric supplies, so presumably the unit has a way of tracking its power usage and reimbursing the homeowner. Otherwise this is just a scam, because far more efficient electrical [EDIT: thanks 'votingprawn!] heat pumps are available for less initial cost. However, the non-scam scenario seems only to make sense as a business in cold locations.
A clarification. For instance, there's plenty of cold in Antarctica, but no fiber and not enought dwellings. In Scandinavia, high fixed broadband penetration is actually combined with cold most of the year. (JFYI, Finnish official definition of summer is temperatures above +10°C for entire 24 hours.)
Efficiency is usually defined as (useful power out)/(power in), and basically all the power that goes into a computer comes out again as heat, which in this case is considered useful. Not really convinced you could buy a heater that was measurably more efficient.
ETA: heat pump would do it, didn't spring to mind when I read heater though!
> seems only to make sense as a business in cold locations.
I'd change that to read "in cold or temperate locations."
There are plenty of locations in Europe for example that rarely have days over 30 C yet don't often get below freezing in the winter. Doesn't make sense to describe these places as particularly "cold."
Cloud computing users don't care---modulo network latency and, to some extent, national laws regarding data privacy and seizure of servers---where their servers are physically located. When it's summer in the northern hemisphere, it's winter in the southern; I'm sure they're looking at South America too.
This is best suited for async workloads (think EC2 spot instances or cpu intensive distributed computing tasks) where network performance isn't critical.
We just need to roll our own clusters of RPi-s driven off Peltier junctions arctic-silvered to the side, and we can run our own parasitic cloud provider off the waste heat. It's turtles all the way down...
> (That's still worse than an electric heat pump though, though - those have > 100% heating efficiency in terms of electricity input).
"Coefficient of Performance" being the over-100%-not-technically-efficiency measure for heat pumps. [0]
Or "Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio" if for god knows what reason you want to measure it in British thermal units per Watt hour. [1]
So a setup like this isn't actually competitive with a heat pump in most conditions, but if the electricity was going to be burned in a datacenter anyway you might as well use the heat for something productive.
If I understood it correctly, there is a server running inside that thing. So by definition, all the heat being generated is inefficiency. Therefore, if 1000 W are being disposed as heat to the environment, then the machine itself is consuming WAY more than that. Otherwise, they found a way to do computing without consuming any energy.
edit: Upon further googling, it looks like I was stupid here. So almost all energy consumed by a PC is dissipated as heat? Did not know that, sorry.
So almost all energy consumed by a PC is dissipated as heat?
Yes. The other forms of energy leaving your PC range from tiny to infintesimal: light from the keyboard/case LEDs, kinetic energy in the exhaust air molecules, radiated RF (both intentional like WiFi and unintentional), radiated sound (both intentional from inbuilt speakers or connected headphones and unintentional from vibrating components), earth leakage, and resistance losses in external wired network connections.
Most of these forms are then reabsorbed and converted to heat by other objects in the immediate surroundings as well.
Increases in the energy stored within the PC are entirely dominated by temperature increases (which will equalise with the surroundings over time). There would also be a truly infintesimal amount of energy stored in changed potential energy in magnetic domains on your hard disk or stored charges in your SSD.
Yes, I get it. Being a Mechanical Engineer and used to balancing energy in heat engines, I just (incorrectly) assumed that SOME kind of work was being done by the computer to perform its main function, which is obviously not the case (at least not to non-negligible amounts). Thanks for clarifying.
Ahh, as an ME you would appreciate then that the useful work a computer does is not thermodynamic work but a decrease in the disorder of some system it is a part of, and this necessarily requires increasing the entropy of its environment - typically by transferring heat to it!
Half the time it would be "off" (during summer), so that means I will pay for 100% of the actually used energy? In that case I'll stick with natural gas for my heating. Also this arrangement should not be called "free".
It's installed on an external wall so when you turn the heater 'off', the heat is redirected to outside. They will apparently also reimburse you for energy used.
That's what I mean, off means it's still "burning" but I get no benefit. And according to ihsw the bill is split leaving me with: In winter: Gaining 50% of the power in heat (don't know how that compares heat-wise to natural gas) and in summer, wasting 50% of my own paid-for electricity. I actually doubt if ihsw's comment is true.
The bill is not split -- it says they reimburse you for the measured power usage of the device. Nowhere does it say that this only applies when the heat is being directed into your house, that I could see.
"Can I really heat my home for free using your heater?"
"Amazingly, yes! The Heater measures how much energy it uses to heat your home and you’ll get fully reimbursed for the cost of this energy. This means that with our Heater you’re heating your home for free!"
I can't find anything about a cost sharing agreement, the only cost I can see is the upfront purchase price in the BBC article (although nothing on the nerdalize site itself).
Nice article. It certainly works at scale because of the economies. I think this distributed system has potential but there are some issues. There are also some things they could do to make it better if the trial is a success.
Using resistive heating (which is what this is) is not very efficient (even if it's a by-product). A better way to heat your home is to not waste power and use it instead to run an electric heat pump (which are over 100% efficient). There is a good analysis in the "Mythconceptions" section at the end of chapter I.11 of the excellent "Sustainable Energy — without the hot air" [0] on p71 (p84 of the free PDF).
That's the downside but there are some interesting applications. They could enable you to host your own personal cloud on the box in your home. So you know where it is.
You could vary the operating time of the servers so they only operate (or at least only run at 100%) when heating is needed. This could be based on the season, an external temperature sensor or weather data. Processing could migrate between the hemispheres of the world depending on the season.
The load could also be varied based on the local grid demands and power mix. Various real-time data sources are available that report on how green the current energy mix is [1] [2]. You can even just measure the frequency of the electricity to see how well generation is matching consumption. This is known as dynamic demand or demand shaping and you can even be paid by the grid operator for it so it could be a good business model. It would also be nice if they partnered with green power companies that buy their energy from renewable sources.
> Using resistive heating (which is what this is) is not very efficient (even if it's a by-product).
If heat is a byproduct it is highly efficient to actually use it rather than waste it. Here the electricity would be used either way for the processing tasks. The system would be inefficient if it just ran busy wait to produce heat, but that's not the case.
> A better way to heat your home is to not waste power and use it instead to run an electric heat pump (which are over 100% efficient).
"100% efficient" makes no sense, let alone "over 100% efficient", you're talking about coefficient of performance (the device's energetic ROI). If you ignore what the system is actually doing, the eRadiator thing has infinite efficiency since you're not paying for any heating (aside from installation costs, which you also have to pay for a heat pump)
That's not how thermal efficiency works. And if you don't care for actual thermal efficiency, the energy taken from the wall plug is irrelevant if you're not paying for it.
I heated my room in college for 4 years using nothing but a Q6600, never turned on the radiator once. Nice solution, but probably will have issues cooling for anywhere that has 90F summer temps.
I'm doing basically the same thing at the moment with a rack of xServes and an HP Proliant. Pretty quiet actually, compared to my music and other noise in my area.
It must be pretty warm where you live. I had a couple of Q6600 upped from 2.4GHz to 3.2GHz, and that wasn’t enough to heat the room. It was in Russia though...
Good insulation and small surface also helps. You won't heat up a 2-story house with just a computer, but a well-insulated dorm room is more than feasible.
...And no data cap, and don't mind a chunk of your bandwidth being used, and don't mind a locked box with an always-on and encrypted connection to who-knows-where in your house. I'd also worry about what happens if/when it breaks down. (For instance, if the power supply fails. Or whatever: there are pretty much always single points of failure on such things.)
Since you have no control over it (aside from ripping it out of the wall), you're at the mercy of whoever runs the box to adequately secure it. When it gets hacked, any shady business conducted by the miscreants will be emitted from /your/ IP, so you're exposing yourself to TOR exit node level liability.
You might be able to work around that.... but it depends what's running on the box. If it's a backend server for some organisation (database, etc) then you could have some sort of tunnelling router between it and the fibre that routes all packets back to the organisation's datacentre.
I worry about the potential consequences of legitimate sensors being repurposed, yes.
Network snooping / spoofing / etc (even if it's on a VPN through an external router it still leaks congestion information!), temperature settings, especially versus actual temperature, power fluctuations, vibration sensors, etc, etc.
I don't particularly want random people knowing - and potentially selling - information about when I sleep, when I eat, when I take a shower, when I'm not home, when I'm on vacation, etc, etc.
And don't mind someone else accessing the internet through your account. Better hope they aren't running a search engine that stumbles on kiddie porn/extremist material/pirated content, etc...
As long as it's set up so it can only connect to the master thing, preferably on a shielded and separate internet connection, then it should be fine - legally, it's their device.
They'd probably have a few service employees doing regular maintenance and replacements on the road though. That would probably be the biggest expense they'd have after installation, actually.
Another question is what happens if/when they get hacked. Remember: to you, it's a locked box. You have no control over their security - or, for that matter, for the security of whoever may buy the company in the future. Much less them deciding to sell your data sometime in the future. (Remember RadioShack?)
Because there's an astounding amount of data leakage from something like this.
For instance:
Network snooping / spoofing / etc (even if it's on a VPN through an external router it still leaks congestion information!), temperature settings, especially versus actual temperature, power fluctuations, vibration sensors, etc, etc.
I don't particularly want random people knowing - and potentially selling - information about when I sleep, when I eat, when I take a shower, when I'm not home, when I'm on vacation, etc, etc.
Can you turn them off? Obviously you don't want to run a heater in the summer.
And if so, wouldn't the resulting (massive) underutilization of hardware erase whatever savings the data center would realize from not having to deal with heat?
Not to mention the other (massive) costs of remote servicing, like literally rolling trucks to replace a hard drive. And 1000W is not even one standard space heater. I like the general idea but this decentralized in-the-home concept seems about as well thought out as their logo.
It would be better suited to a centralized application like the heated swimming pool: year round usage, enough density to achieve economies of scale in servicing and providing site security.
Or how about this: locate your next data center near a town with a district heating system, so you can tap into it and pipe waste heat directly into homes. (Sweden has lots of waste-to-energy plants that burn trash to generate electricity and hot water heating distributed through networks of pipes.[1]) In the case of Sweden you wouldn't even have to build out much infrastructure; it's already there. I wonder if anyone has explored this?
EDIT: I just saw ville posted about this very idea. Cool.
EDIT2: jessaustin notes that they keep the server running constantly and probably use a powered heat pump to vent it outside during the summer. (Which still raises questions for me about the efficiencies.. small scale heat pumps probably aren't as efficient as a large-scale data center implementation.)
Or a kid pours his cup of sticky soft drink in the vents (heaters need to have vents right, almost certainly at the top). Anyone who thinks something can be "tamper proof" has never lived with a 4 year old.
The reliability issues that are mentioned are no problem with enough redundancies of course.
My fiber optic connection is 50/50 even though the line is (the way it is used now) able to do 500/500. They should aim for deals with ISPs for my excess bandwidth.
It would be very interesting to hear their security analysis and conclusions. The article's casual use of the term "tamper-proof" doesn't sound credible without details.
When it's in the "push heat outside" mode on a hot summer day, there is a significant amount of air to pump, in order to dissipate a kilowatt. I wonder how noisy is the unit in this case.
73 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 150 ms ] threadTo be eligible for the eRadiator, your home has to have... "an external wall" ... and the external wall is needed for venting (if you "turn off" the eRadiator, the servers don't actually turn off; the heat is just pushed outside).
Admittedly, without active refrigeration this is unlikely to work too well when the temperature outside is over 35 C.
EDIT: they don't mention separate electric supplies, so presumably the unit has a way of tracking its power usage and reimbursing the homeowner. Otherwise this is just a scam, because far more efficient electrical [EDIT: thanks 'votingprawn!] heat pumps are available for less initial cost. However, the non-scam scenario seems only to make sense as a business in cold locations.
How are you defining efficiency here?
Efficiency is usually defined as (useful power out)/(power in), and basically all the power that goes into a computer comes out again as heat, which in this case is considered useful. Not really convinced you could buy a heater that was measurably more efficient.
ETA: heat pump would do it, didn't spring to mind when I read heater though!
I'd change that to read "in cold or temperate locations."
There are plenty of locations in Europe for example that rarely have days over 30 C yet don't often get below freezing in the winter. Doesn't make sense to describe these places as particularly "cold."
This could be a supplement for existing systems, perhaps even a backup or to serve some use spikes. But definitely not a replacement.
There are only few days a year when it gets over 30 in Scandinavia & Baltics.
(That's still worse than an electric heat pump though, though - those have > 100% heating efficiency in terms of electricity input).
"Coefficient of Performance" being the over-100%-not-technically-efficiency measure for heat pumps. [0]
Or "Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio" if for god knows what reason you want to measure it in British thermal units per Watt hour. [1]
So a setup like this isn't actually competitive with a heat pump in most conditions, but if the electricity was going to be burned in a datacenter anyway you might as well use the heat for something productive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_energy_efficiency_rat...
edit: Upon further googling, it looks like I was stupid here. So almost all energy consumed by a PC is dissipated as heat? Did not know that, sorry.
Yes. The other forms of energy leaving your PC range from tiny to infintesimal: light from the keyboard/case LEDs, kinetic energy in the exhaust air molecules, radiated RF (both intentional like WiFi and unintentional), radiated sound (both intentional from inbuilt speakers or connected headphones and unintentional from vibrating components), earth leakage, and resistance losses in external wired network connections.
Most of these forms are then reabsorbed and converted to heat by other objects in the immediate surroundings as well.
Increases in the energy stored within the PC are entirely dominated by temperature increases (which will equalise with the surroundings over time). There would also be a truly infintesimal amount of energy stored in changed potential energy in magnetic domains on your hard disk or stored charges in your SSD.
"Can I really heat my home for free using your heater?"
"Amazingly, yes! The Heater measures how much energy it uses to heat your home and you’ll get fully reimbursed for the cost of this energy. This means that with our Heater you’re heating your home for free!"
http://www.nerdalize.com/faq/
I can't find anything about a cost sharing agreement, the only cost I can see is the upfront purchase price in the BBC article (although nothing on the nerdalize site itself).
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/20/helsinki-...
Using resistive heating (which is what this is) is not very efficient (even if it's a by-product). A better way to heat your home is to not waste power and use it instead to run an electric heat pump (which are over 100% efficient). There is a good analysis in the "Mythconceptions" section at the end of chapter I.11 of the excellent "Sustainable Energy — without the hot air" [0] on p71 (p84 of the free PDF).
That's the downside but there are some interesting applications. They could enable you to host your own personal cloud on the box in your home. So you know where it is.
You could vary the operating time of the servers so they only operate (or at least only run at 100%) when heating is needed. This could be based on the season, an external temperature sensor or weather data. Processing could migrate between the hemispheres of the world depending on the season.
The load could also be varied based on the local grid demands and power mix. Various real-time data sources are available that report on how green the current energy mix is [1] [2]. You can even just measure the frequency of the electricity to see how well generation is matching consumption. This is known as dynamic demand or demand shaping and you can even be paid by the grid operator for it so it could be a good business model. It would also be nice if they partnered with green power companies that buy their energy from renewable sources.
[0] http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html [1] http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html [2] http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
If heat is a byproduct it is highly efficient to actually use it rather than waste it. Here the electricity would be used either way for the processing tasks. The system would be inefficient if it just ran busy wait to produce heat, but that's not the case.
> A better way to heat your home is to not waste power and use it instead to run an electric heat pump (which are over 100% efficient).
"100% efficient" makes no sense, let alone "over 100% efficient", you're talking about coefficient of performance (the device's energetic ROI). If you ignore what the system is actually doing, the eRadiator thing has infinite efficiency since you're not paying for any heating (aside from installation costs, which you also have to pay for a heat pump)
The expression "coefficient of performance" is used instead of efficiency for heat pump.
Good insulation and small surface also helps. You won't heat up a 2-story house with just a computer, but a well-insulated dorm room is more than feasible.
They're heating water for consumer purposes. I met one of their founders yesterday, they're pretty neat!
A neat idea in some ways, but I'd be wary.
Do you fear hidden microphones, cameras and other sensors? If not, then what's the harm?
You might be able to work around that.... but it depends what's running on the box. If it's a backend server for some organisation (database, etc) then you could have some sort of tunnelling router between it and the fibre that routes all packets back to the organisation's datacentre.
Network snooping / spoofing / etc (even if it's on a VPN through an external router it still leaks congestion information!), temperature settings, especially versus actual temperature, power fluctuations, vibration sensors, etc, etc.
I don't particularly want random people knowing - and potentially selling - information about when I sleep, when I eat, when I take a shower, when I'm not home, when I'm on vacation, etc, etc.
They'd probably have a few service employees doing regular maintenance and replacements on the road though. That would probably be the biggest expense they'd have after installation, actually.
Another question is what happens if/when they get hacked. Remember: to you, it's a locked box. You have no control over their security - or, for that matter, for the security of whoever may buy the company in the future. Much less them deciding to sell your data sometime in the future. (Remember RadioShack?)
For instance:
Network snooping / spoofing / etc (even if it's on a VPN through an external router it still leaks congestion information!), temperature settings, especially versus actual temperature, power fluctuations, vibration sensors, etc, etc.
I don't particularly want random people knowing - and potentially selling - information about when I sleep, when I eat, when I take a shower, when I'm not home, when I'm on vacation, etc, etc.
And if so, wouldn't the resulting (massive) underutilization of hardware erase whatever savings the data center would realize from not having to deal with heat?
Not to mention the other (massive) costs of remote servicing, like literally rolling trucks to replace a hard drive. And 1000W is not even one standard space heater. I like the general idea but this decentralized in-the-home concept seems about as well thought out as their logo.
It would be better suited to a centralized application like the heated swimming pool: year round usage, enough density to achieve economies of scale in servicing and providing site security.
Or how about this: locate your next data center near a town with a district heating system, so you can tap into it and pipe waste heat directly into homes. (Sweden has lots of waste-to-energy plants that burn trash to generate electricity and hot water heating distributed through networks of pipes.[1]) In the case of Sweden you wouldn't even have to build out much infrastructure; it's already there. I wonder if anyone has explored this?
EDIT: I just saw ville posted about this very idea. Cool.
EDIT2: jessaustin notes that they keep the server running constantly and probably use a powered heat pump to vent it outside during the summer. (Which still raises questions for me about the efficiencies.. small scale heat pumps probably aren't as efficient as a large-scale data center implementation.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating
Or a kid pours his cup of sticky soft drink in the vents (heaters need to have vents right, almost certainly at the top). Anyone who thinks something can be "tamper proof" has never lived with a 4 year old.
My fiber optic connection is 50/50 even though the line is (the way it is used now) able to do 500/500. They should aim for deals with ISPs for my excess bandwidth.