Why Solar Power?

You may ask why choose solar power to run a website, or you may not have even thought it possible. But consider the fact that hosting a website involves lots of high powered equipment, such as servers, routers, air conditioning units and security systems, all running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that the average server consumes in excess of 400 Watts of power.

The impact on the environment is considerable and it's clear that something needs to be done; which is where we come in. Lightbeing Creations powers all it's equipment (servers, routers, firewalls, air conditioning, backup systems and more) from renewable energy.

So through generating clean electricity to run the data centre from the sun's energy, Lightbeing Creations is actively working for a better future for us all. This also means that we do not use energy credits to offset our energy usage, making it the first and only data centre of it's kind.

According to BP Solar, the 120 solar panel system will eliminate the production of:

19,890 lbs of Carbon Dioxide (CO2/GHG) per year
5.9 lbs of Nitrous Oxide (NOX/smog) per year
0.45 lbs of Sulphur Dioxide (SO4/acid rain) per year

This is the equivalent of planting 3.5 acres of trees per year, which can't be a bad thing!

At the UK office of Lightbeing Creations, we are not currently using solar power, but we are using a green electricity supplier, Ecotricity, the world's first green electricity company.

What About Cloudy Days?

A common concern that people have, is that solar panels can only generate electricity when it's sunny. But in fact, solar panels are very effective at generating energy from the diffused light that makes it's way through clouds. So even when it's cloudy in California, the solar powered data centre will still produce all the electricity we require.

Why not Energy Credits?

River Avon In this day of environmental awareness, more and more hosting companies are looking to become carbon neutral. While this in itself is a good thing, most look to exchange Renewable Energy Certificates for the dirty electricity they use and Carbon Credits to offset the other impacts of their business on the environment.

At Lightbeing Creations we wanted to have greater control over the process, so we reduce our consumption and impact where possible. The biggest change we saw that could be made was to use new renewable electricity and so we looked for the solutions that would allow that. We found the answers to be utilising the sun to power the California data centre, and wind to power our UK office. Both of these solutions are fully sustainable, new renewable energy sources, rather than old renewable sources. We then assessed our overall impact and personally take steps to counteract that impact by planting trees at the Landmatters permaculture project in Devon. We'll repeat this process each year. So as we grow as a business, the wood we help to plant in Devon will grow too. Nice, huh?!

New vs Old

Confused by all this talk of new and old renewable energy? Allow us to explain. Most so-called green electricity tariffs simply purchase a proportion of your electricity from long established renewable sources, such as hydro-electric, and perhaps plant a few trees as well. While this is good, it's not actually increasing the amount of renewable electricity that's being generated. At Lightbeing Creations, we do things differently, and so can you! The California solar powered data centre is custom built to the highest environmental standards, producing all the electricity it needs from the sun's rays. Our UK office is powered by Ecotricity, who are dedicated to investing in and building new renewable projects. So when Lightbeing Creations uses electricity both in the UK and the US, we're actively contributing towards new renewable electricity.