How much does power go for nowadays ?

Tue Aug 30 11:39:35 PDT 2005

Michael T. Halligan wrote:
> Alan Horn wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> What do people expect to be a reasonable rate from colocation 
>> facilities for power circuits.
>>
>> e.g. How much for a 30A 110v, and how much for a 30A 240V single phase ?
>>
>> I'm getting various figures from different vendors and I just want to 
>> see what the market cost would be. I prefer to pay for what I'm 
>> getting (power), rather than have some extra amount tagged on so that 
>> they can run loss leaders on other parts of the operation.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Al
>>
> Alan,
> 
> The datacenter I host at, which has comparatively expensive power, seems 
> to be $16 per amp.

It depends on how it is quoted.

Is that with air conditioning costs?  -  Air conditioning can take up to 
twice the amount of power you use to suck out the heat on your load.

Is that "breakable" or "usable" amps? -  A typical drop into a cab will 
be one or more 20 amp circuits.  For a 20 amp breaker, you can only use 
2/3's of its rating or 16 amps.  Many places will say you have a 20 amp 
circuit and give you a quote for "$16 per amp" and multiply this against 
the full 20 amp number.  In this case $320 per 20 amp circuit.  If they 
are figuring your use of 16 amps then the price will be $256.  Also, 
most colos will assume you are pulling the full load when billing.  A 
few Colos will have smart PDUs that can measure what you are using.  You 
can try to arrange a deal where you only pay for what you are using.

If you are leasing a bunch-o-racks, ask the colo to put a sub-tenet 
meter in for you that monitors your racks.  This should be easy for the 
colo if you take up enough racks to fill your own breaker panel.

BTW... As another data point, we (UnitedLayer) charges about $250 for a 
20 amp drop.

Tim