[wg-all] TODAY: Seminar: The Role of Computation in Accelerating the Deployment of Renewable Energy Resources

Tue Aug 17 10:02:26 EDT 2021

Reminder: This seminar is TODAY, Tuesday 17 Aug 2021, 2:00 - 3:00 pm EDT (1:00-2:00 CDT, 11:00-12:00 PDT, other times at https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Seminar%3A+The+Role+of+Computation+in+Accelerating+the+Deployment+of+Renewable+Energy+Resources&iso=20210817T14&p1=3601&ah=1<https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Seminar:+The+Role+of+Computation+in+Accelerating+the+Deployment+of+Renewable+Energy+Resources&iso=20210817T14&p1=3601&ah=1>)
Zoom coordinates:  https://virginia.zoom.us/j/91604400587?pwd=M0sxV1FpdkVSdjZIcHBpbWN4RkFjUT09

Dear OGF colleagues,

Behind the scenes as we have continued to work with the remaining working groups that use OGF as a base for their standards-related activities, several of the OGF officers including myself and OGF board chair Dr. Andrew Grimshaw have been discussing and sharing ideas for getting computation more directly integrated with the operation of the electrical grid, both to save on energy costs and to facilitate scaling of electrical load control through large-scale computation to the point that it could contribute to stabilization and response to grid power regulation needs.

Pursuant to this topic, please see the announcement below of a seminar to be given next week at the University of Virginia by Andrew Grimshaw.

Alan Sill, PhD
Managing Director, High Performance Computing Center
Adjunct Professor of Physics
Texas Tech University
https://www.hpcc.ttu.edu/depts/hpcc

Co-Director, NSF Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center
https://nsfcac.org

President, Open Grid Forum

———————————————

From: "Grimshaw, Andrew S (ag8t)" <grimshaw at virginia.edu<mailto:grimshaw at virginia.edu>>
Date: August 12, 2021 at 3:46:11 PM CDT
Subject: The Role of Computation in Accelerating the Deployment of Renewable Energy Resources

Colleagues,

As you may or may not know I have been on leave from the University of Virginia the last two years working on technologies for decarbonizing the electrical grid at a company called Lancium.  The energy world is changing very quickly and computation can help.

Please accept my apologies for the form letter style of this note.

Many people are unaware of the scale of the transformation that the electrical grid is undergoing – the sheer amount of new renewable generation coming online, and the problems that must be addressed to absorb that much renewable power. As a controllable, potentially variable load, computation can play an important role in stabilizing the grid in the presence of large amounts of variable renewable generation. I believe this is particularly important for computational scientists (and those who deliver the computational resources to them) to understand as every MWh of electricity consumed in the US leads, on average, the emission of 0.7 metric tons of CO2.

Given this context, I thought you might be interested in a talk I am giving at UVA next week on the role that computation can play in accelerating the integration of renewable energy resources into the electrical grid.

Please forward this announcement if you’d like to others who might be interested.

SEMINAR - The Role of Computation in Accelerating the Deployment of Renewable Energy Resources

Date/Time: Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. ET
Speaker: Andrew Grimshaw<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fengineering.virginia.edu%2Ffaculty%2Fandrew-grimshaw&data=04%7C01%7Calan.sill%40ttu.edu%7Cf6a0becac84342bb3a7308d95dd23701%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C637643979709094708%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=mTyBjn9TPELFAfLFnkxBmCDWRDpuM5lrBkblgyAMqKA%3D&reserved=0>; Lancium Compute; UVA Computer Science (on leave)
Location: Rice Hall room 130*
Zoom is also available for those unable to attend in person (join: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/91604400587?pwd=M0sxV1FpdkVSdjZIcHBpbWN4RkFjUT09<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvirginia.zoom.us%2Fj%2F91604400587%3Fpwd%3DM0sxV1FpdkVSdjZIcHBpbWN4RkFjUT09&data=04%7C01%7Calan.sill%40ttu.edu%7Cf6a0becac84342bb3a7308d95dd23701%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C637643979709104699%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=5b43wOQjAL4K3SjFI8JfV88n8K3asXbO2cvnKhWIqsI%3D&reserved=0>)

Abstract:
Every GWh of electricity produced in the US today leads on average to 0.7 metric tons of CO2 emissions. Thus, a one MW data center on average leads to the emission of six thousand metric tons of CO2 per year. That's the bad news. The good news is that renewable, carbon-neutral generation is now the least expensive means to produce electricity in the world, period. This has led to the development of tens of gigawatts of wind and solar in the US and the world in the last decade. In the Great Plains of the US alone, there is now so much excess power that wind and solar resources are often curtailed, leaving terawatt-hours of power unused.

In short, generating sufficient power with renewables is no longer the problem. Instead, the problem is leveraging this power. There are two significant challenges. First, the sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow, meaning that the current design of the electrical grid will have to change to accommodate fluctuating generation. Second, the best wind and solar sources are not proximate to sources of load, namely, population centers and heavy industry.

One way to address this second problem is to identify energy-intensive, economically viable industries that can be feasibly moved to the Great Plains and that can accommodate the large amounts of variable generation provided by renewable energy. Computation fits these requirements: computation turns electricity into value and requires only power and networking to operate. Computation can be paused, restarted, and migrated up and down the Great Plains in response to differences in power availability. In essence, data centers can act like giant batteries and grid stabilizers, soaking up power and delivering value when renewable sources are pumping out lots of power, and reducing consumption and stabilizing the grid when renewable sources are limited.

In this talk, I present how different forms of computation can be used to soak up excess very inexpensive renewable power, stabilize the grid when generators (including wind and solar) fluctuate or drop offline, and act like giant batteries by reducing their load and returning their load to the grid. I begin with a bit of background on the explosion of renewable energy, the challenges renewables present to the electrical grid, and electricity markets. I then discuss computation as controllable load, beginning with BitCoin, and then moving to High Throughput Computing in support of the sciences, engineering, and AI. I conclude with a discussion of the 2 GW of Clean Compute Campuses that Lancium is building in Texas.

*Please follow the current temporary masking policy<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcoronavirus.virginia.edu%2Fupdates%2Fimportant-updates-semester-plans-and-temporary-masking-policy&data=04%7C01%7Calan.sill%40ttu.edu%7Cf6a0becac84342bb3a7308d95dd23701%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C637643979709104699%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=orYczFk7aE6kC5u2tg8Z%2FzCADSYpfeH9CacZnJLcFPI%3D&reserved=0> when on-Grounds.

…

Emily C. Stacy
Project Coordinator
Department of Computer Science
E ecs4y at virginia.edu<mailto:ecs4y at virginia.edu>
P 434.924.9976
M 434.466.6078
University of Virginia
School of Engineering & Applied Science
Rice Hall Room 530
85 Engineer's Way
PO Box 400740
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4740

Andrew Grimshaw
Department of Computer Science
University of Virginia
grimshaw at virginia.edu<mailto:grimshaw at virginia.edu>
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