Volume 30: Urban Energy Systems towards Carbon Neutrality

Performance Analysis of Data Centers Applying Hybrid Renewable Energy Power Systems Wei He, Qing Xu, Shi Zhao, Shengchun Liu, Hailong Li

Abstract

Considering the current goal of energy-intensive industries such as data centers is mainly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a great effort is made to achieve sustainable operations by using renewable energy generation to meet power consumption. This paper proposes a hybrid power system based on a
combination of a natural gas turbine, photovoltaic, wind energy, and battery storage, using a data center in Tianjin of China as a model. Technical and economic analyses are performed for each system configuration by comparing the renewable penetration and the Levelized Cost of Electricity. Taking into account renewable penetration and cost, the various types are ranked from best to worst as PV-wind-battery; PV-wind; PV only; and wind only. The results show that the larger the PV-rated power, the higher the renewable penetration. When considering using wind energy, 1,000 kW is the best solution. When battery storage is used, 3,000 kWh is optimal.

Keywords Distributed Energy System; Renewable Energy; Data Center; Renewable Penetration; Levelized Cost of Electricity