There is a global objective of increasing the use of renewable energy sources. A path to accomplish that is the use of load shifting. This technique has been applied to the residential sector, but there is a growing need to apply it to datacenters. However, there is a need to consider the discomfort caused by the load rescheduling. In the present work, a datacenter with a photovoltaic system, non-controllable loads and controllable loads is used, and the algorithm determines the optimal schedule of the controllable loads. When minimizing energy costs purely, a saving of 16.64% was achieved. However, these savings come at the expense of discomfort, especially in scenario 3.1. Moreover, when minimizing the discomfort, one scenario achieved a cost reduction of 10.17%, but in another, the flexibility was so low that the load shifting was not enough to generate a cost saving.
Abstract as published.
Rita, C., Pedro, F., & Zita, V. (2026). Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration. 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632
Rita, C., Pedro, F., & Zita, V. (2026). Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration. 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632Rita, C., Pedro, F. and Zita, V. (2026) ‘Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration,’ 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM). Edited by , pp. 1–5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632.[1]C. Rita, F. Pedro, and V. Zita, ‘Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration,’ 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), pp. 1–5, Jun. 2026, doi: 10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632.Rita, Costa, Faria Pedro, and Vale Zita. 2026. ‘Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration.’ 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), June 22, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632.Rita C, Pedro F, Zita V. Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration. 2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM). 2026. https://doi.org/10.1109/EEM68581.2026.11589632@inproceedings{Rita_2026, title={Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/EEM68581.2026.11589632}, DOI={10.1109/eem68581.2026.11589632}, booktitle={2026 22nd International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM)}, publisher={IEEE}, author={Rita, Costa and Pedro, Faria and Zita, Vale}, year={2026}, month=June, pages={1–5} }