I'm a small host, 5 servers, and I *did* look at AISO and contacted greenwebhosting before they launched – what I found was their offerings for small hosts that want to be in a fabulous data center are simply not enough. It's not configurable enough or competitive enough. When I asked about different boxes, it was one size fits all – that's not what I need.

My “corporate office” has a recycled door as a desk, and my chair was freecycled. My office phone rings on my main line through a service to save energy – I didn't buy carbon offsites so I could slap a “dude, I'm green, buy here” as some new marketing scam. I did it because moving to a solar powered data center would not get me the quality I needed and that my clients were used to. And I tried.

Green Tags are the best way that I could do it, and I pay a heck of a lot of money, kilowatt per kilowatt +10% in case I'm off, to do it. The fact that someone may assume I'm pulling some scam is really upsetting – the fact that the industry is potentially perpetuating the idea that it's a scam is alarming. I don't sit here and pray that no one does it so I can corner some mythical market – I hope every single solitary hosting company will someday be able to say they are carbon neutral. Our industry is miserably inefficient and that has to change in any and every way we can change it.

But those who market green and buy offsets are doing *something* – how much they are doing beyond that is up to the buyer to discover and find out, but it has to be better than a company that's not doing anything at all when making a choice where to host.

For hosts that want to host in a Solar Data Center, AISO is the only solar data center in the US, and their server offerings are not competitive in any shape, form, or fashion. 1 server with 40 GB Disk Space, 200 GB Bandwidth, no processor or memory specs posted, starting at *$350* a month? With M-F 8-5 support? That’s so far outside of competitive as to not even be in the same ballpark with the industry.

It would be absolutely great if “the” solar powered host had offerings that rivaled the quality and choice of the major data centers, but they don’t – for what I get on 5 servers now, there, I would have to use 12 and pay extra to get the software that I get now for free. It’s not cost effective for anyone other than the smallest, one server web host, and the lack of 24-7 support is a huge issue.

Unfortunately, the differences are more than just where the energy comes from with this data center.

Solar Energy Host is an example of a webhosting company that uses green solar energy to directly power it’s server.

I’m a small host, 5 servers, and I *did* look at AISO and contacted greenwebhosting before they launched – what I found was their offerings for small hosts that want to be in a fabulous data center are simply not enough. It’s not configurable enough or competitive enough. When I asked about different boxes, it was one size fits all – that’s not what I need.

My “corporate office” has a recycled door as a desk, and my chair was freecycled. My office phone rings on my main line through a service to save energy – I didn’t buy carbon offsites so I could slap a “dude, I’m green, buy here” as some new marketing scam. I did it because moving to a solar powered data center would not get me the quality I needed and that my clients were used to. And I tried.

Green Tags are the best way that I could do it, and I pay a heck of a lot of money, kilowatt per kilowatt +10% in case I’m off, to do it. The fact that someone may assume I’m pulling some scam is really upsetting – the fact that the industry is potentially perpetuating the idea that it’s a scam is alarming. I don’t sit here and pray that no one does it so I can corner some mythical market – I hope every single solitary hosting company will someday be able to say they are carbon neutral. Our industry is miserably inefficient and that has to change in any and every way we can change it.

But those who market green and buy offsets are doing *something* – how much they are doing beyond that is up to the buyer to discover and find out, but it has to be better than a company that’s not doing anything at all when making a choice where to host.

At my home, I have the option to pay a premium for renewable energy, and I have lots of official stuff on my bill showing the higher price I pay with the guarantees that money got fed into the grid. My electric company releases the energy I pay for into the grid – they have to, or its illegal. Are the zaps coming into my house guaranteed to be clean?

No. Energy delivery is communal – but the higher premium I pay puts more clean energy into the grid that would not otherwise get there. If enough people chose to pay for the higher premium, a higher percentage of energy in the grid would be renewable. Does it come with the same ego boost as solar panels on the top of my house? No. Does it ensure that less pollution comes from me because I pay more than everyone else? Yes. It makes a difference.

It’s the same concept. Green Tags enable people that want to buy renewable energy but who don’t have it directly available to them to do so. If *everyone* did it no matter where they were, we could all be green in a short amount of time.

If you wonder if its a scam, ask to see the certificates that were issued (as we all get certificates saying precisely what we bought), and the report as to how they arrived at how much to offset. If they can’t give it to you, then yes, possibly, it’s a scam.

If they *can*, the place you are hosting is paying for their energy *twice*, once to keep the power on, and again in the same amount to feed that energy they used back into the grid as green energy so someone else doesn’t have to use dirty energy.

How someone voluntarily choosing to pay for their electricity twice can be considered “a scam” is beyond me.

ITs like selling london fog,in a empty tin can and when you open the tin its empty.but daft folks will buy the empty tins as they belive that the label cant lie!!