It's interesting enough to see those nifty portable solar panels you can lug around to plug into a laptop for use anywhere. It's another thing altogether when a company is powering all their servers off solar energy, completely. "Affordable Internet Services Online", in a press release yesterday, gave several details as to how they are using a large array of solar panels and green building techniques to reduce power consumption and power their servers completely from light energy provided by the sun. Their servers are using AMD Opteron processors, and even the room itself the servers are in has light provided by solar tubes, which have become more popular in recent years in large office environments.

For a variety of reasons, this can only be seen as a good thing. Traditional energy is becoming more expensive, and computers are becoming more and more energy greedy. Though they mention on their website that they can get power from the grid if needed, they don't mention how long their battery supplies last without sunlight, which may be important if a large storm were to roll in. Great stuff, though, and good to see.