Risk-Constrained Operation for Internet Data Centers in Deregulated Electricity Markets

In this paper, we study the problem of achieving the optimal tradeoff between operation risk and expected energy cost for Internet data center (IDC) operators in deregulated electricity markets according to the risk preferences of IDC operators. To achieve the target above, we propose a risk-constrained stochastic programming decision framework. Then, we formulate a risk-constrained expected energy cost minimization problem with the uncertainties in spot price and workload. To solve the formulated problem, we use a decomposition-based cutting plane algorithm. Finally, extensive evaluations based on real-life data show the effectiveness of the proposed decision framework.