Custom Carbon Intensity Data

Minimizing the environmental impact requires considering the carbon intensity of the grid powering each data center.

• Source: We use historical grid carbon intensity data from the Electricity Maps API.

• Content & Units: Provides time-series data representing the grams of CO₂ equivalent emitted per kWh of electricity consumed (gCO₂eq/kWh) for different grid regions.

• Coverage & Resolution: Covers supported regions from 2021–2024, typically at hourly or finer resolution, aligned to the 15-minute simulation step.

• Usage: This data allows the simulation to calculate the carbon emissions associated with both the operational energy (compute + cooling) consumed at each DC and the energy estimated for data transmission. It provides a critical signal for carbon-aware scheduling.

• Storage: Stored in yearly CSV files under data/carbon_intensity/REGION/YEAR/.