Carbon-Aware Computing at the Infrastructure Level: Dynamic Workload Migration, Renewable Energy Signal Integration, and Scope 3 Emission Attribution for Hyperscale Cloud Operators
Hyperscale cloud operators managing distributed data center fleets across multiple grid regions have a structural opportunity to reduce operational carbon emissions by dynamically migrating or deferring workloads to facilities with higher real-time renewable energy availability -- a practice termed carbon-aware computing. While carbon-aware scheduling at the application and DevOps pipeline levels has received growing research attention, the infrastructure-level engineering challenges of carbon-aware workload migration across hyperscale fleets -- including migration cost modeling, renewable signal integration latency, Scope 3 attribution methodology, and workload SLA compatibility analysis -- have not been comprehensively treated in the academic literature. This paper presents CarbonFleet, a carbon-aware infrastructure management system for hyperscale cloud operators, incorporating real-time carbon intensity signals from the Electricity Maps API across 34 grid regions, predictive renewable availability modeling using weather-driven solar and wind generation forecasts, and a multi-objective workload migration optimizer balancing carbon reduction, migration cost, and SLA compliance. CarbonFleet is evaluated in a simulation environment calibrated to a real 18-region cloud fleet over 12 months of historical demand and carbon intensity data. CarbonFleet achieves a 31.4 percent reduction in operational carbon intensity compared to carbon-unaware scheduling baselines while maintaining 99.94 percent SLA compliance across migrated workloads. We introduce a Scope 3 Cloud Emission Attribution Methodology (SCEAM) that disaggregates supply chain and customer workload carbon contributions with 94 percent fidelity against direct metering baselines, addressing a critical gap in cloud sustainability reporting standards.