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Energy Management for Distributed Carbon-Neutral Data Centers

Author

Listed:
  • Wenting Chang

    (College of Data Science and Application, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010080, China)

  • Chuyi Liu

    (College of Data Science and Application, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010080, China
    Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Engineering & Technology Research Center of Big Data Based Software Service, Hohhot 010080, China
    Research Center of Large-Scale Energy Storage Technologies, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Hohhot 010080, China)

  • Guanyu Ren

    (College of Data Science and Application, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010080, China)

  • Jianxiong Wan

    (College of Data Science and Application, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010080, China
    Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Engineering & Technology Research Center of Big Data Based Software Service, Hohhot 010080, China
    Research Center of Large-Scale Energy Storage Technologies, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Hohhot 010080, China)

Abstract

With the continuous expansion of data centers, their carbon emission has become a serious issue. A number of studies are committing to reduce the carbon emission of data centers. Carbon trading, carbon capture, and power-to-gas technologies are promising emission reduction techniques which are, however, seldom applied to data centers. To bridge this gap, we propose a carbon-neutral architecture for distributed data centers, where each data center consists of three subsystems, i.e., an energy subsystem for energy supply, thermal subsystem for data center cooling, and carbon subsystem for carbon trading. Then, we formulate the energy management problem as a Decentralized Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (Dec-POMDP) and develop a distributed solution framework using Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (MADDPG). Finally, simulations using real-world data show that a cost saving of 20.3% is provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Wenting Chang & Chuyi Liu & Guanyu Ren & Jianxiong Wan, 2025. "Energy Management for Distributed Carbon-Neutral Data Centers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-20, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:11:p:2861-:d:1668192
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    References listed on IDEAS

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