Isn’t it fantastic when a large company gets their way just because they have so much control over a smaller company? Of course it isn’t, but that is recently what happened, and one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft was at the centre of it.
Somewhere in Washington State lies a small community. This community is famed for the fantastic deals that it offers on electricity. As a result, many large companies have opened up their data centres here in order to cut costs. One of these is Microsoft, who have recently been criticized of bulling the local energy company.
According to sources, Microsoft greatly overestimated its energy needs. As a result it was given a penalty for $210,000 by the energy company, something which Microsoft were clearly not happy about. Instead of paying the bill from their vast riches, Microsoft, in all of their wisdom decided to waste millions of watts of electricity by powering up heaters in the data centre needlessly. This was an effort to get the fine substantially reduced.
Of course, the energy company relies on some of the income that Microsoft brings to their company, and of course, the local community relies on the jobs that are created in the area. As a result, Microsoft ended up winning the argument and the fine for over estimating their electricity needs was substantially cut. This certainly is going to put a blight on the normally ‘green’ image that Microsoft tends to portray.
