Exploiting Renewable Energy and UPS Systems to Reduce Power Consumption in Data Centers

Abstract To develop environmental friendly and energy-efficient data centers, it is prudent to leverage on-site renewable sources like solar and wind. Data centers deploy distributed UPS systems to improve efficiency, scalability, and reliability of UPS systems, thereby handling the intermittent nature of renewable energy. We propose a renewableenergy manager called REDUX to (1) offer a smart way of managing energy supply of data centers powered by grid and renewable energy and (2) maintain a desirable balance between energy cost and system performance. To achieve this overarching objective, REDUX judiciously orchestrates distribute UPS devices (i.e., recharge or discharge) to allocate energy resources when (1) grid price is at low or high states or (2) renewable energy generation is at a low or fluctuate level. REDUX not only guarantees the stable operation of daily workload conditions, but also cuts back the energy cost of data centers by improving power resource utilization. Compared with the existing strategies, REDUX demonstrates a prominent capability of mitigating average peak workload and boosting renewable-energy utilization.