Quote from: jtoomim on September 02, 2014, 06:16:53 AM

You only pay for the power you use. If you have a 1 MW transformer connected and energized, it only uses about 10-15 kW of power (the so-called no-load losses due to imperfect magnetic properties of the iron in the transformer). At $0.10/kWh, that might cost you $1000 a month. If you connect 200 kW of bitcoin miners, it then costs you about $15,800 per month. Add in the air conditioning costs for those miners, and you're looking at something in excess of $20,000 per month.

The amount of power used by an air conditioner is related to the load. Many people calculate A/C load in terms of square footage, but that is only accurate when the load is mostly conductive losses through walls and ceilings plus typical office-type equipment. Once you start adding loads like Bitcoin miners, the amount of time your A/C unit has to be on goes way up.

"Keeping the lights on" uses a very small amount of power. Typical lighting loads might be 1.5 W per square foot. Our server racks, once full, will use about 500 W per square foot. One server rack full of SP30s uses several times as much power as all the lights in our building.

If a real estate agency is paying for this while a building is between tenants or up for remodeling, they are either going to be pissed off or they are not paying attention. My guess is the latter.

Essentially there's nothing wrong with what you wrote above, except that it shows that you don't understand the needs of a premium property landlord. "Keeping the lights on" takes much more than simply keeping the light on: the property needs to be attractive, safe, desirable, etc. To be honest I don't completely understand the large landlords either, but at least I spoke (not negotiated) with them on several occasions and have some understanding. Neither did I work for Victoria's Secret, but again spoke with friends who did. What I could say:

If somebody comes with an idea how to turn hot aisles in their Bitcoin mine towards the windows and combine it with bikini fashion show in those hot aisles, then landlords like CBRE will offer you really competitive electricity prices with their leases. The only downside will be that you'll have to travel worldwide, but again CBRE will cover the costs.

Quote from: jtoomim on September 02, 2014, 06:16:53 AM

I have seen some rate schedules for power usage that are use-it-or-lose-it, or where you get a sudden decrease in price if you use a little more power. In a case like that, I can see how it might make sense to consume more. For the real estate case, though, I'm either not following your argument or not agreeing with it.

I get a tingle that you are getting closer to understanding dealing with large landlords.

Quote from: jtoomim on September 02, 2014, 06:16:53 AM

Nope, but poorly arranged cables impede airflow. The power cables (not pictured) are a more significant contributor to airflow resistance. Also, haphazardly wired network cables result in mistakes during maintenance.

Ha ha, impeded airflow! One of my coworkers had actual numbers for MTTR (Mean Time To Repair/Reconfigure/Replace) and MCTR ('Cost' instead of 'Time') for tight racks vs. slack racks (after a merger of two companies with vastly different cultures) and the numbers aren't supporting the claims of the OCD crowd.

I however understand your position when marketing yourself to the owners of Spondoolies' hardware which is in large part "status symbol" crowd.