Re: Electrical costs to run a home web server

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Author: Eric Oyen via PLUG-discuss
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
CC: Eric Oyen
Subject: Re: Electrical costs to run a home web server
Hmm, interesting.

We have been on a budget plan with SRP for more than 30 years here. In all that time, our bill never varied much from the $150 to $175 a month and that cost has been consistent for the last 20 years or so. In fact, before he passed on, the senior roomie here kept all copies of his bills. I have been going through them with his son in order to electronically copy all of them (among other important papers), so, my data on this is pretty recent. So, either my machine (at the time) was using less than I thought, or SRP made a significant accounting error for a better part of several years.

Believe me, a $500 or more amount yearly would have been noticed here.

-Eric
From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild. Accounting Dept.


> On Jul 22, 2021, at 3:45 PM, Brian Cluff via PLUG-discuss <> wrote:
>
> I think you'll find that server of yours used closer to $500 than $120.  Based on the 600watt number that you gave your usage would look like this on SRP right now under their normal flat rate plan:
> Months    Number of Days    Kwh Cost    Machine Load in Kilo watts    Cost per hour(KWH cost times wattage)    Cost per day(Cost per hour time 24 hours)    Total Cost (Cost per time period)
> May, Jun, Sep, Oct    122    0.1091    0.6    0.06546    1.57104    191.66688
> Jul,Aug    62    0.1157    0.6    0.06942    1.66608    103.29696
> Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, April    182    0.0782    0.6    0.04692    1.12608    204.94656

>
>
>
>
>
> Grand Total    499.9104

>
> Even if you machine used half the power you specified it would still be about twice what you thought it was.
>
> I always recommend that people don't use their old computers when it comes to use cases like using them for routers  because it's MUCH cheaper to buy something like a PI or a dedicated router than it is pay for power to feel a machine that uses waaay more than you need to.
> With a raspberry pi under worst case useage with it being use to 100% capacity you'd only get charged $6.32 per year, but it would most likely be closer to it's idling cost of $2.82 for power:
> Months    Number of Days    Kwh Cost    Machine Load in Kilo watts    Cost per hour(KWH cost times wattage)    Cost per day(Cost per hour time 24 hours)    Total Cost (Cost per time period)
> May, Jun, Sep, Oct    122    0.1091    0.0076    0.00082916    0.01989984    2.42778048
> Jul,Aug    62    0.1157    0.0076    0.00087932    0.02110368    1.30842816
> Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, April    182    0.0782    0.0076    0.00059432    0.01426368    2.59598976

>
>
>
>
>
> Grand Total    6.3321984

>
>
> Brian Cluff
>
> On 7/21/21 3:50 PM, Eric Oyen via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> Back when I ran a home server on my Athlon X2 with 1500 W supply, the machine never drew that much. Even with several disks spinning, 8 VMWare instances going and a few other goodies, that machine never drew more than 600w at maximum. I kept it live 24/7 for a few years and it added less than $120 yearly to the electrical bill. These days, that machine is out of service and is only good for parts. My Mac mini, which draws at most 100 W under full load is on 24/7 and I don’t even see it add that much to the electrical bill here. There are really only 3 high draw appliances in this house now:
>> 1. The refrigerator
>> 2. The stove/oven
>> 3. The master cool evaporative cooler. Everything else either runs on wall warts or only gets used occasionally. In fact, we spend less than $150 a month here for electric. Now, if I put that Athlon X2 back into service, we might see $10 a month in extra use. I am still contemplating putting it back up and using it as my go to linux development machine.
>>
>> -Eric
>> From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Utilities Dept.
>>
>>> On Jul 21, 2021, at 7:33 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss <> <mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I just read this quote about the electrical costs to run a web server from home:
>>>
>>> Cost: While it may sound cheaper to use that computer lying around doing nothing when creating your web server, when you factor in the cost of powering an old computer 24 hours a day, it can get very expensive. A 250W desktop computer running 24 hours per day at 12 cents per KW/h is a whopping $262.00 per year!
>>>
>>> ---
>>> I think their math is wrong.
>>>
>>> The average residential electricity rate in Chandler is 10.85¢/kWh.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking a low traffic PHP web server running on an old Dell with a 400 watt power supply is not using but maybe 100 watts on average. I've read that the computer should use no more than half the power supply capacity. Is this correct?
>>>
>>> If my home web server is using 100 watts an hour that mean 100 watts * 30 days * 24 hours or 72K watts.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking 72 * .1085 = $7.81 a month.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts are much appreciated.
>>>
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