© ASTRON,LOFAR ERIC,CIT

Above you can see a graph of the power usage at the LOFAR CEntral Processing facility (CEP) in the Smitsborg in Groningen over the past two years. Several events that happened over the past two years are annotated in the graph.

You can see the graph runs at about 1400 kWh per day until 1 September 2024, when LOFAR 1 observing ended. You can see the new LOFAR2.0 systems arriving one by one, and old LOFAR 1 systems being turned off some time later. You can see part of the LOFAR1 systems continuing to run to support LOFAR2.0 commissioning. You an see a big gap in March 2025 when the power, racks and floors of the server room were upgraded and replaced. All systems had to be turned off and moved to alternative locations to allow for the construction work.

You can also see what a difference in total power consumption a decade in computer hardware makes. All of our new hardware is much more powerful than the old systems, but power consumption has gone down a lot, dipping below 500 kWh/day at the end.

If you have further questions, want to use this graph or the underlying data, please contact me.