An integrated decision-making framework for sustainable data center operation through intelligent load scheduling

Abstract

Intelligent load scheduling is an emerging approach that has the potential to facilitate extreme sustainable data center (DC) operation. However, scarcity of straightforward tools in the public domain challenges decision makers performing quantitative analysis of the DC load planning and its potential benefits. In this work, a novel integrated decision-making framework was developed to address this issue, which provides the basis for the multi-objective optimization of carbon-, water-, and economic-intelligent load scheduling. The proposed framework was demonstrated with a case study DC in California, which showed the usefulness of the proposed framework in informing sustainable DC operations.