Demand Side Management; a new opportunity for energy efficient data centers

Hitherto, power systems are vertically integrated and managed using a top-down approach. However, in recent years, extensive
integration of distributed generators, desire of tapping renewable resources and enabling technologies such as; fast, cheap and
accessible communication infrastructure altered this vertical structure of electrical power systems. These changes are recapped
as smart grid technologies. In vertically integrated classical power systems demand fluctuations are compensated by dispatching
reserve generation resources using unit commitment technics. However, it is a known fact that, renewable based distributed
generators are not dispatchable and cannot be considered for unit commitment problems. Fortunately, smart grid technologies
provide a novel tool for power system operators. This tool called as demand side participation or management and is simply
implemented by dispatching the load instead of generation.
Electricity consumption of data centres is exponentially increased in recent years. Significant amount of electricity utilization,
readily available communication infrastructure, fluctuating nature of work load and most importantly thermal inertia that is
provided by extensive cooling need of data centres make them a promising candidate for demand side management application.
In this presentation, general mechanism of demand side management application will be discussed. Moreover, demand side
participation capability of data centres further explored. Brief information on a newly started EU H2020 project "Sustainable
energy demand side management for GREEN Data Centers-GREENDC" aiming developing a tool for measurement of demand
side participation capability of data centres will be introduced.