From carbon awareness to demand shifting and shaping
What if you could change your way of working and reduce your CO2 emissions, without having to make drastic alterations? And what if I would tell you that this is actually pretty easy to accomplish? Demand shifting and demand shaping are concepts that invite you to consider when/where you run your workloads; shifting your energy usage, aka electricity demand, to times and locations when/where energy is cleanest. Read along to find out what this means and how this can be done.
- Renske Melchers - VermolenTech Lead
Behavioral change starts with awareness
How can you expect someone to change their behavior, if they don’t even know that a change needs to be made? At Wavemakers we believe knowledge and understanding are the fundamentals for all transformations. As such, one of the topics Rabobank colleagues are informed on is Carbon Awareness. When you are using electricity, it is the energy source that determines the emitted carbon. Once you realize this, you can choose to work more when the source is cleanest.
Two types of energy sources
Likely, you’ve heard of renewable (e.g., wind-, solar- & ocean) and non-renewable (e.g., coal & gas)energy sources. The difference between the two is the inexhaustive character of the renewables and exhaustive character of non-renewables, also known as fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are used to generate energy, a significant amount of CO2 is released. According to EU statistics, 80% of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by humans is generated through the use of non-renewable energy. Contrarily, the production of renewable energy is better for the environment as it causes far less CO2. It is safe to say that a transition to renewable energy is crucial.
Understanding the source of your energy
When energy is used, the carbon that is produced is measured through the total grams of carbon emitted for one kilowatt hour (i.e., gCO2eq/kWh) for that source. This concept is also referred to as carbon intensity. The less carbon an energy source produces, the lower its carbon intensity.
Influencing the used energy source
It has been found that demand shifting can reduce carbon emissions significantly, ranging from 45 to 99%, depending on the amount of renewable energy sources fueling the grid. You can compare this with running your washing machine. It used to be cheaper to run your laundry at night with the off-peak rate, but nowadays it is better to turn on the machine when the sun is shining.
This above example is temporal shifting, shifting your computation (energy usage) to another time when the sun is shining, or wind is blowing. Another option is spatial shifting, which means relocating your computation; for example, to another hemisphere with more sunlight hours. (I don’t see spatial shifting working for your laundry though!)
Incorporating demand shifting and shaping in your daily work
Now you may wonder how you can apply your growing carbon awareness in your daily work?
This is where you essentially have 2 options;
- Shift your demand to locations and times when the energy is most clean by working with electricity maps
- Shape the demand to match the existing supply, automatically (e.g. run your scheduled computations during daylight hours instead of at night) or by choice of the user (e.g. offer eco/dark mode).
The first step might be to consider how we can become more efficient with resources, but in the end I invite you to consider how we can consume less.
This article is brought to you on behalf of Wavemakers.