Towards Intelligent Operation of Data Centres Integrating Renewables and Smart Energy Systems
Abstract
The significant increase in the energy consumed by data centres has recently been driving the efforts for the implementation of energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy sources. Due to their unique nature, data centres are demanding enormous amounts of energy and therefore they are ideal candidates for implementing actions to reduce the energy consumption and thus improve their ecological footprint while at the same time reducing their operational costs. The aim of this work is to analyse the operational conditions of a medium size data centre using a developed TRNSYS model in order to identify potential for improving their energy performance and operational costs. This work also studies the potential of implementation of an on-site generation system, represented by a roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) system. The results of this parametric analysis highlight the important features that need to be considered when optimizing the operation of air-cooled data centres, especially the trade-off between inlet air supply and chilled water temperature.
Keywords
Data centre, Energy efficiency, Energy modelling, Co2 emissions, Renewable energy.