Huge Power Draws for Google, Yahoo, Sabey

The Sabey Corp. has contracted with the Douglas County Public Utility District for 30 megawatts of electricity for its new Intergate.Columbia LLC data center in East Wenatchee, Wash., according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. If the company were to use all of its contracted power, that would amount to about one-third of the PUD's anticipated local demand of about 90 megawatts, said Bill Dobbins, general manager of Douglas County PUD. "This is a big deal," said Dobbins.

There are even bigger deals right in the neighborhood, as Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are building facilities in the area that have arranged for even larger amounts of power. Microsoft's project in Quincy, Wash. has contracted for a maximum of 48 megawatts of power from the Grant County PUD. Yahoo is building a data center in Wenatchee and has contracted for 42 megawatts of power, according to the Seattle paper.

The Grant County PUD owns and operates the two-dam Priest Rapids Project on the Columbia River in central Washington. Together, the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams make up one of the nation’s largest hydropower developments, with the capacity to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity – which according to the PUD is enough to supply a city the size of Seattle.

So Yahoo, Microsoft and Sabey have arranged for 120 megawatts of power between them. Industry estimates suggest that each megawatt of electricity can power between 350 residential homes - meaning the three facilities have contracted for enough electricity to power 42,000 homes.

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  By Rich Miller August 10, 2006 | Permalink | >Get Posts By E-mail

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