Microsoft Accused of Wasting $70K in Power to Avoid Fine

Imagine receiving a cell phone bill, only to find out that you under-utilized what was offered to you. Now imagine receiving a bill later that charges you 3x as much simply due to that fact. It’d be hard to fathom, right? Well, the New York Times is claiming that Microsoft faced just such an issue, but it involved power and much more money than a simple cell phone bill would require.

The problem, oddly enough, is that Microsoft didn’t use as much power as it was supposed to – odd to hear in our green-minded society. As such, the power facility tried to fine Microsoft $210,000 – 3x the value of the unused quantiy of power. In order to deflect this fine, Microsoft is being accused of deliberately burning through $70,000 worth of power in a mere 3 days. 3 days! How the company managed this is beyond my guess, but it ultimately resulted in a much smaller fine.

I’m not environmentalist, but just imagining a company – Microsoft or any other – burning through power like that for no reason at all is just mind-boggling. Being in a contract that requires you to use a certain amount of power is even stranger, though. You’d quicker think that a contract would be in place with a minimum dollar value, not a caveat that can result in a fine 3x as large as the unused power.