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Cloud computing is one of emerging computing models that has many advantages including immediate access to information technology resources with no or little capital investments, lowering information technologies (IT) barriers to innovation, making it easier for enterprises to scale their services, etc. (Marston, Li, Bandyopadhyay, Zhang, & Ghalsasi, 2011). IT industry is keenly aware of the need for Green Cloud computing solutions that save energy for the environment as well as reduce operational costs. Green Computing is defined as by Murugesan (2008, pp. 25-26):
Green IT refers to environmentally sound IT. It is the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems (monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems) efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment.
One of environmentally sound green IT practices includes operating data centers to reduce their energy consumption, thereby minimizing greenhouse gas emissions (Murugesan, 2008). The Cloud is a network of servers over the Internet (in the data center). As shown in Figure 1, the data centers (DCs) in the USA consumed about 2 percent of the country’s total energy consumption (70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity) in 2014 (Sverdlik, 2016). Table 1 summarizes the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rate by the most popular DCs.
Figure 1. The energy consumption of data centers worldwide 2013 (Koomey, 2013)
Table 1. CO2 emission rate by the most popular DCs
| Cloud Datacenter location | CO2 Emission rate (kg/kWh) | energy (kWh) |
| New York, USA | 0.389 | 2525.375 |
| Pennsylvania, USA | 0.574 | 804 |
| Ohio, USA | 0.817 | 2033.764 |
| Texas, USA | 0.664 | 7519.875 |
| France | 0.083 | 2187.152 |
| Australia | 0.924 | 2896.309 |