Load Shifting in Datacenters Considering Discomfort and Renewables Integration

Synopsis

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.

Cite this work

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