🌿APCr

Data centers can achieve higher sustainability by adjusting their operations to the tune of clean energy production (e.g. load shifting). DC4Cities proposed in 2014 a metric which captures how much the energy consumption profile of a data center matches the availability of renewable and green energy: Adaptability Power Curve at Renewable Energies.

Details

Unit: NA

Minimum: 1.0

Maximum: -∞

Ideal: 1.0

Formula

APCren=1−∑i=1n∣KEReni−EDCi∣∑i=1nEReni APC_{ren} = 1 - \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{n} |K E_{Ren i} - E_{DC i}|} {\sum_{i=1}^{n} E_{Ren i}}
K=∑i=1nEDCi∑i=1nEReni K = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{n} E_{DC i}} {\sum_{i=1}^{n} E_{Ren i}}

Where

  • Ereni is the renewable energy production on the grid (or onsite) in kWh,

  • EDCi is the total energy consumption of the data center in kWh,

  • K serves as an adjustment factor to meaningfully compute $E_{ren i}$ against $E_{DC i}$,

  • i is the time period, and

  • n is the sample size

As the amount of renewable electricity on the grid is far higher than what a data center consumes, K is needed to equalize their magnitudes.

Evaluation

Has not been used in the industry.

Improvement Strategies

Load shifting.

Sources

[1] Cluster Activities Task 3

[2] Metrics for Assessing Flexibility and Sustainability of Next Generation Data Centers [pdf]

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