Work in progress: second expert consultation workshop on data centre flexibility

When: 23 November

Data centres account for over 2.5% of electricity consumption in both Germany and China, and growing rapidly. Depending on efficiency gains and growth of the computing industry, some studies project that data centres may make up 3-13% of global energy consumption by 2030. The data centre industry has focused on energy efficiency for years, but utilization of renewable energy is still rare. The BMWicommissioned Sino-German Energy Transition Project is currently researching technical options and business models for data centres to participate in the power market and boost their flexibility to enable the coupling of renewables with industrial electricity loads. Researchers supported by the project have conducted interviews with data centres, grid operators, and academics in China and Germany, and identified challenges and barriers to increasing data centre flexibility. On 23 November, experts from the project partners German Energy Agency (dena) and North China Electric Power University will present their newest research progress, where Chinese and German experts will provide comments and share about practical implementation experiences that aid the finalisation of the research report aiming for the beginning of 2022.

For more information on the topic, please contact Mr. Philipp Geres (philipp.geres(at)giz.de).