Integrating Sustainable Computing With Sustainable Energy Research

NREL's computational sciences center hosts the largest high performance computing (HPC) capabilities dedicated to sustainability research while functioning as a living laboratory for sustainable computing. NREL's HPC capabilities support the research needs of the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). In ten years of operation, HPC use in EERE-sponsored sustainability research has grown by a factor of 30. This paper analyzes this research portfolio, providing examples of individual use cases. The paper documents NREL's history of operating one of the world's most sustainable data centers while examining pathways to improving sustainability beyond reduction of PUE. This paper concludes by examining the unique opportunities created for sustainable computing research created by combining an HPC system dedicated to sustainability research and a research program in sustainable computing.