Carbon Usage Effectiveness
Info
CUE is one important data center sustainability metric.
CUE describes how efficiently a data center "uses" carbon: How much carbon is emitted in operation in relation to the energy consumption of the IT equipment.
Formula:
Notes:
- Standardized according to ISO/IEC 30134-8 / DIN EN 50600-4-8
- The metric focuses on emissions during operation, i.e. emissions from production, for example, are not taken into account
- A low CUE value means that the data center produces fewer CO2 emissions during operation while consuming the same amount of energy, i.e. it is more CO2-efficient; a value of 0 CO2eq/kWh would be ideal
- The CUE is an important addition to the PUE in order to include the type of energy generation in the consideration of energy consumption
- So far, only a few sustainability-oriented cloud providers publish figures on the CUE of their data centers (e.g. Scaleway, OVHcloud).
- Measures for improvement:
- Improvement of data center energy efficiency (PUE)
- Use of renewable energies (location-based)
- (CO2 offsetting)
- The CUE metric should ideally be specified on a location basis (location-based, not market-based)
- Regions with a high proportion of renewable energies in the electricity grid lead to a lower CUE