Reducing the data center electricity costs through participation in smart grid programs

To accommodate the increasing presence of intermittent renewable energy sources in power generation, electricity providers offer incentives for demand response so as to stabilize the grid load. This paper argues that data centers have the ability to provide large capacity reserves to emerging smart grid programs, and thus, provide opportunities for sustainable data center growth and cost savings as well as more flexibility for the grid. The paper first reviews the emerging smart grid opportunities, and then proposes policies to deliver data center demand response for peak shaving, regulation services, and frequency control prorgrams. Experimental results indicate substantial cost saving potential compared to solely applying energy management strategies at the data centers.