Optimizing Data Centres Operation to Provide Ancillary Services On-Demand
In this paper a methodology for optimizing Data Centres (DCs) operation allowing them to provide various types of Ancillary Services on-demand is proposed. Energy flexibility models have been defined for hardware devices inside DCs aiming at optimizing en
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Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania {marcel.antal,claudia.pop,dan.valea,tudor.cioara,ionut.anghel, ioan.salomie}@cs.utcluj.ro
Abstract. In this paper a methodology for optimizing Data Centres (DCs) oper‐ ation allowing them to provide various types of Ancillary Services on-demand is proposed. Energy flexibility models have been defined for hardware devices inside DCs aiming at optimizing energy demand profile by means of load time shifting, alternative usage of non-electrical cooling devices (e.g. thermal storage) or charging/discharging the electrical storage devices. As result DCs are able to shape their energy demand to provide additional load following reserve for large un-forecasted wind ramps, shed or shift energy demand over time to avoid an coincidental peak load and feed back in the grid the energy produced by turning on their backup fossil fuelled generators to maintain (local) reactive power balance under normal conditions. Experiments via numerical simulations based on real world traces of DC operation highlight the methodology potential for optimizing DC energy consumption to provide Ancillary Services. Keywords: Data centre · Energy consumption optimization · Ancillary Services · Energy flexibility · Demand shifting
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Introduction
The Data Centre (DC) services business is blooming but, as it is usually the case, this is only one side of the story: the growing demand of their services increases their demand on energy resources, which directly translates to increasingly higher operational costs, not to mention the detrimental impact to the environment and, as such, society as a whole. Besides, the significant economic and environmental impact, the annual increasing energy demand of the DC poses another severe risk: the risk of supply shortage and instability of the electricity network. This may cause exponentially increasing side effects. On one hand to the local economy, which may suffer accidental black-outs, and on the other hand to the normal operation of the DC itself, as it is expected to provide continuous operation and guaranteed availability ranging from 99.671 % (Tier 1 DC) to 99.995 % (Tier 4 DC). All these factors are putting DC business in a risky position and creating higher pressure on the DC administrators on cutting down the energy demand and bills.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 J. Altmann et al. (Eds.): GECON 2015, LNCS 9512, pp. 133–146, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43177-2_9
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At the same time with the latest developments in the areas of digital technologies and renewable energy production the Smart Grid concept has emerged. It allows for two-way communication between the utility and its customers, the sensing along the distribution lines and combines traditional brown energy sources with green energy sources such as photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, geo-thermal power plants, etc. However, the main problem of this grid is that it cannot store energy, thus forcing the energy producers to shed their generation to matc
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