Carbon intensity measures the carbon dioxide emissions associated with producing a unit of electricity in a particular region and time period. It explains why identical computations can have different footprints depending on when and where they run. section 8.4.7 section 8.6
Use carbon-intensity data to make workload placement and scheduling more responsive:
- Shift energy-intensive work to periods when the grid is cleaner, while enforcing a maximum delay. section 8.4.7
- Shift heavy computation to a data-center region with lower carbon intensity when several deployment locations are available. section 8.4.7
- Retrieve real-time or predicted values through a public service such as WattTime before making scheduling decisions. section 8.4.7
Delay a daily report
A reporting system calls a forecast endpoint, selects the next several-hour window with the lowest expected emissions, and delays processing only within a daily execution limit. Windows 11 applies a similar time-shifting idea to system updates. section 8.4.7
Carbon intensity supports estimation rather than exact measurement. Software Carbon Intensity combines electricity use, regional carbon intensity, and hardware’s embodied carbon, then normalizes the result by a functional unit such as a request or batch job. section 8.5.1
