Demand Response Control Strategies for On-campus Small Data Centers

Demand Response (DR) is often regarded as the killer application of the emerging smart grid. The ever-growing Internet population and energy consumption makes data centers auspicious candidates with great potential for DR. Besides commercial data centers and large server farms, small data centers scattered in academic or research environments consume considerable amount of energy. Unlike commercial data centers that are mission critical and must meet rigorous reliability and availability requirements, small data centers on campus are typically not mission critical. Such data centers are the most likely prospects for participating in DR programs. Different from the long term effort required for improving energy efficiency, DR programs expect participants to temporarily reduce their power demand on some short periods. The related information is still inadequate for organizations maintaining many small data centers, since the existing studies usually focus on energy efficiency issues for the large dedicated server farms. This study examines the power consumption recorded by smart meters from a small data center, and identifies the limitations and potential for small data centers participating in DR programs.