Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) is a measurement used to evaluate how effectively a data center reduces its carbon footprint.

CUE takes into account both the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated in the data center and the energy consumption of the IT equipment.

How is Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) calculated?

CUE is calculated by dividing the total amount of CO2 generated by the data center (including from electricity consumption and other energy consumption), by the total amount of energy used by the IT equipment.

The formula looks like this:

CUE = Total CO2 emissions generated by the data center / Energy consumption from IT equipment

The result gives an indication of the amount of CO2 generated per unit of energy used by the data center.

The meaning of high and low CUE

A low CUE value indicates that the data center uses energy efficiently and produces relatively little CO2 in relation to the amount of energy used.

A high CUE value, on the other hand, indicates that the data center produces a lot of CO2 in relation to the amount of energy used, and that there is a need to take measures to reduce the carbon footprint.