Providing Regulation Services and Managing Data Center Peak Power Budgets
Barış Akşanlı, Tajana Rosing · 2014
Abstract — Data centers are good candidates for providing regulation services in the power markets due to their large power consumption and flexibility. In this paper, we develop a framework that explores the feasibility of data center participation in these markets. We use a battery-based design that can not only help with providing ancillary services, but can also limit peak power costs without any workload performance degradation. The results of our study using data for a 21MW data center show up to $480,000/year savings can be obtained, corresponding to 1280 more servers providing services. I. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK Substantial integration of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources into the electric grid poses significant challenges to ensuring the grid stability. Ancillary services are one mechanism utility companies use to ensure stability. It