HPC from A-Z (part 5) - E

This week I’ll turn my attention to the letter ‘E’.

Energy is an extremely hot topic. It’s an issue that is important on a global level, and governments across the world are ushering in new legislation and tax laws to encourage a more energy efficient approach to life.

Those who see HPC as a burden on energy supplies are often short sighted – HPC can be used to provide more energy efficient engineering and design. For example, it can be used for designing aircraft and vehicles that consume less fuel.

Developers in the renewable energy sector rely on advanced weather models – produced using HPC – to locate ideal sites for wind farms and solar plants. In the case of Renewable Energy Systems (RES), HPC made wind mapping 20 times faster than it had been previously and helped RES cut power consumption by 75 percent. This was made possible by Dell consultants who designed and implemented a Dell blade cluster that was running Platform Computing software.

Do you have any ideas or recommendations for other E industries, companies or projects that could benefit from HPC?