Integrating Energy-Efficient Computing Research to Accelerate Energy Technology

TL;DR

This paper discusses how NREL's energy-efficient HPC systems support energy research, highlighting their role in accelerating energy technology development and exploring pathways to further reduce environmental impact.

Contribution

It presents an analysis of NREL's HPC energy research portfolio and explores how integrating energy-efficient computing can accelerate advancements in energy technology.

Findings

HPC use in EERE research increased 30-fold over ten years

NREL operates one of the world's most energy-efficient data centers

Combining HPC with energy-efficient computing accelerates energy tech innovations

Abstract

NREL's computational sciences center hosts the largest high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities dedicated to energy research while functioning as a living laboratory for energy-efficient computing. NREL's HPC capabilities support the research needs of the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). In ten years of operation, HPC use in EERE-sponsored research has grown by a factor of 30, including work in electricity generation, energy efficiency, transportation, and energy system modeling. This paper analyzes this research portfolio, providing examples of individual use cases. The paper documents NREL's history of operating one of the world's most energy-efficient data centers while examining pathways to reduce economic and environmental impact beyond reduction of Power Usage Efficiency (PUE). This paper concludes by examining the unique opportunities created for accelerating improvements in data center efficiency created by combining an HPC system dedicated to energy research and a research program in energy-efficient computing.