Data Centers Optimized Integration with Multi-Energy Grids: Test Cases and Results in Operational Environment

Marcel Antal,Massimo Bertoncini,Ionut Anghel,Artemis Voulkidis,Nicolas Sainthérant,Marzia Mammina,Wojciech Piatek,Claudia Daniela Antal (Pop),Diego Arnone,Marilena Lazzaro,Terpsichori-Helen Velivassaki,Ariel Oleksiak,Yoann Ricordel,Tudor Cioara

doi:10.3390/su12239893

Abstract

In this paper, we address the management of Data Centers (DCs) by considering their optimal integration with the electrical, thermal, and IT (Information Technology) networks helping them to meet sustainability objectives and gain primary energy savings. Innovative scenarios are defined for exploiting the DCs electrical, thermal, and workload flexibility as a commodity and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are proposed and used as enablers for the scenarios’ implementation. The technology and scenarios were evaluated in the context of two operational DCs: a micro DC in Poznan which has on-site renewable sources and a DC in Point Saint Martin. The test cases’ results validate the possibility of using renewable energy sources (RES) for exploiting DCs’ energy flexibility and the potential of combining IT load migration with the availability of RES to increase the amount of energy flexibility by finding a trade-off between the flexibility level, IT load Quality of Service (QoS), and the RES production level. Moreover, the experiments conducted show that the DCs can successfully adapt their thermal energy profile for heat re-use as well as the combined electrical and thermal energy profiles to match specific flexibility requests.

Highlights

As the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) services industry is blooming, such services being requested in almost every domain or activity, Data Centers (DCs) are constructed and operated to supply the continuous demand of computing resources with high availability
We show the validation results of the proposed technology throughout the first four scenarioSscedneafirnioedNiunmTbabelre 2Pionztnwaon pCilloout dDCDsC, a MPoicnrtoSCalionut dMDarCtincoCnonleocctaedtioton PDVCsystem and located in Poznan Pol1and and a Colocation DC located in Pont Saint Martin, Italy
DCs, were taken from the pilot 3DCs, flexibility actions were computed by the software stack deployed in the pilot and the actions w4 ere executed by leveraging on the integration with existing Data center infrastructure management (DCIM)

Summary

Introduction

As the ICT services industry is blooming, such services being requested in almost every domain or activity, Data Centers (DCs) are constructed and operated to supply the continuous demand of computing resources with high availability. Hybrid solutions featuring liquid cooling are adopted while at the same time re-using the heat in the smart energy grid [12] These solutions require complex ICT-based modelling and optimization techniques to assess the DC potential thermal flexibility and associated operation optimization [13]. IT workload execution time shifting [2,21,25] Workload spatial relocation in federated DCs [2,24] Optimization heuristics [21,24,25] Blockchain-based DC workload distribution and management [26] In this context, the innovative vision defined by H2020 project CATALYST [28] is that the DCs’ energy efficiency, should be addressed by managing their operation considering the optimal integration with electrical, thermal and data networks. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the new scenarios and ICT technology, Section 3 describes the results obtained in two pilot DCs, and Section 4 concludes the paper

Scenarios and Technology

DC Flexibility Manager System

Objective

Poznan Micro DC w3ith Photovoltaic System

Scenario 1

Scenario 3

Pont Saint Martin DC

Scenario 2

Scenario 4

Conclusions