Making Data Centers Fit for Demand Response: Introducing GreenSDA and GreenSLA Contracts

Abstract

Abstract-The power grid has become a critical infrastructure, which modern society cannot do without. It has always been a challenge to keep power supply and demand in balance; the more so with the recent rise of intermittent renewable energy sources. Demand response schemes are one of the counter measures, traditionally employed with large industrial plants. This paper suggests to consider data centres as candidates for demand response as they are large energy consumers and as they are able to adapt their power profile sufficiently well. To unlock this potential, we suggest a system of contracts that regulate collaboration and economic incentives between the data centre and its energy supplier (GreenSDA) as well as between the data centre and its customers (GreenSLA). Several presented use cases serve to validate the suitability of data centers for demand response schemes.

NFV/SDN Enabled Architecture for Efficient Adaptive Management of Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy

“…DCs in DR strategies can be enabled by communications standards such as the OpenADR Communication Specification [24], or NFV to offer intelligent and flexible energy management ecosystems. As part of DR schemes, DCs can coordinate requests and/or actions among the supplier and consumers in order to autonomously and continuously adapt energy generation to the changing loads over time [5]. For instance, DCs can encourage or stimulate consumption caused by an excess of power generated from renewable energy sources, or they can coordinate a demand reduction/redistribution in emergency situations [25].…”

“…In [26] for instance Klingert et al analyze the technical aspects of power management between DCs and smart cities when renewable energy sources are incorporated to the DR system. Instead, in [4], [5] the ALL4Green project describes the technical and business relations between energy providers, DCs and end users or ICT customers. In this project the authors proposed a collaborative environment that, based on service level agreements, is able to foster the power adaptation (increase/decrease) between energy providers and consumers.…”

“…In this project the authors proposed a collaborative environment that, based on service level agreements, is able to foster the power adaptation (increase/decrease) between energy providers and consumers. The ALL4Green architecture divides the DR system into two subsystems: the first subsystem, Energy Provider-Data center, governed by Green Supply Demand Agreements (Green SDAs) [27], [28], meanwhile the second subsystem, Data center -ICT consumer, is based on agreements defined as Green Service Level Agreements (Green SLAs) [5].…”

“…DR schemes consist of a set of requests and actions exchanged between the Energy Supplier (ES) and the Energy Consumers (ECs) that are carried out on the basis of agreements or contracts, with the aim of promoting consumer participation in energy management by allowing the modification of consumption according to availability [3]. The main incentives for engaging users in DR initiatives are free-use periods or reduced electricity bills [4], [5]. DR programs can be implemented using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures, such as Data Centers (DCs) [6].…”

Flexibility-Based Energy and Demand Management in Data Centers: A Case Study for Cloud Computing

“…In short, those schemes define a list of actions that need to be taken by the power consumers to drastically reduce the electrical load during power shortage situations. Data centers, on one hand, due to their significant power demand (in the magnitude of up to 200 MW [1]) and, on the other hand, thanks to their fully automated frameworks that exploit flexibilities without human interventions, were shown to be excellent candidates for participating in the demand-response schemes [12][13][14].…”