Google's data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

From the article:

Each day, at every Google data center, our carbon-intelligent platform compares two types of forecasts for the following day. One of the forecasts, provided by our partner Tomorrow, predicts how the average hourly carbon intensity of the local electrical grid will change over the course of a day. A complementary Google internal forecast predicts the hourly power resources that a data center needs to carry out its compute tasks during the same period. Then, we use the two forecasts to optimize hour-by-hour guidelines to align compute tasks with times of low-carbon electricity supply. Early results demonstrate carbon-aware load shifting works. Results from our pilot suggest that by shifting compute jobs we can increase the amount of lower-carbon energy we consume.