Energy Consumption Calculator
Estimate the electricity consumption of training or serving an AI model.
About Energy Consumption Calculator
Total data center energy consumption exceeds the raw power draw of GPUs alone because of cooling, power distribution losses, and other facility overhead — captured by the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) metric. This calculator computes GPU energy use directly from TDP × count × hours, then applies the facility's PUE multiplier to estimate total energy drawn from the grid, which feeds directly into carbon emissions estimation.
Formula
total_kwh = (gpu_tdp_watts × gpu_count × hours / 1000) × PUE
- gpu_tdp_watts
- GPU thermal design power in watts
- gpu_count
- Number of GPUs
- hours
- Runtime in hours
- PUE
- Power Usage Effectiveness ratio (1.0 = no overhead)
Worked example
With the default values below, Energy Consumption Calculator returns Total Energy Consumption of 2,764.80. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- GPU TDPaccepts 1–2,000 watts
- 400 watts
- Number of GPUsaccepts 1–100,000 GPUs
- 8 GPUs
- Runtimeaccepts 0–1,000,000 hours
- 720 hours
- Data Center PUEaccepts 1–3
- 1.2
Results
- Total Energy Consumption
- 2,764.80 kWh
- IT Equipment Energy
- 2,304.00 kWh
- Facility Overhead Energy
- 460.80 kWh
Step by step
- 1IT equipment energy= 2304.00 kWh
- 2Total facility energy (with PUE)= 2764.80 kWh
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good PUE value?
Modern hyperscale data centers achieve PUE values around 1.1-1.2, while older or less efficient facilities can run 1.5-2.0 or higher.
Does TDP represent actual power draw?
TDP is a manufacturer rating that approximates peak sustained draw; real-world average utilization during training is often 70-95% of TDP, so this is a reasonable upper-bound estimate.
How do I convert this to a carbon footprint?
Feed the totalKwh result into the Carbon Emission Calculator (AI) along with your grid's carbon intensity to get a CO2 estimate.