Forecasting the effect of heat stress index and climate change on cloud data center energy consumption

TL;DR

This paper models how rising heat stress index and climate change will significantly increase data center energy consumption, emphasizing the need to incorporate climate factors into future energy forecasts.

Contribution

It introduces forecasting models that account for heat stress index and climate change effects on data center energy use, highlighting their impact.

Findings

Rising temperatures increase data center energy consumption by about 8%.

Forecasts including heat stress index differ significantly from baseline models.

Climate change effects are crucial for accurate energy consumption predictions.

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the effect of heat stress index (a measure which takes into account rising temperatures as well as humidity) on data center energy consumption. We use forecasting models to predict future energy use by data centers, taking into account rising temperature scenarios. We compare those estimates with baseline forecasted energy consumption (without heat stress index or rising temperature correction) and present the result that there is a sizeable and significant difference in the two forecasts. We show that rising temperatures will cause a negative impact on data center energy consumption, increasing it by about 8 percent, and conclude that data center energy consumption analyses and forecasts must include the effects of heat stress index and rising temperatures and other climate change related effects.