Energy provider/data centre sub-ecosystem
Data centers, as major customers of energy providers can significantly contribute to reduce peak loads in the electricity grid or help out if there is a surplus of renewable energy available. Data centers provide numerous methods to adapt power consumption. Some of the methods allow for storing energy when the availability of renewable energy is high. Other methods use the spatial and temporal relocation of services in order to adapt the load in the data center to the actual situation in the electricity grid. The adaption of power consumption requires a close cooperation between data center and energy provider. A signalling between data center and energy provider is needed which allows the energy provider to ask the data center to adapt its power consumption if needed.