dotnet delivers an in-depth talk on implementing carbon aware computing using .NET open source libraries, showcasing sustainable development patterns for Azure, on-premises, and Kubernetes environments.

Carbon Aware Computing with .NET Open Source Libraries for Sustainable Applications

Speaker: dotnet
Session: .NET Conf 2025

Overview

Modern software development faces the crucial challenge of minimizing its environmental impact. This session dives into practical methods to build climate-friendly and resource-efficient applications by leveraging existing Green Software Development design patterns and open source .NET libraries.

Key Concepts Covered

• Carbon Aware Computing Principle: Software should align its resource usage with the availability of renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions by shifting workloads and adapting dynamically.
• Time-Shifting: Scheduling plannable jobs (batch processes, background tasks) to run during periods where renewable energy dominates the grid supply.
• Demand Shaping: Adapting application capacity and features to match available resource supply, especially for on-demand scenarios.

Implementation Strategies

• .NET Open Source Libraries: The talk demonstrates how to use libraries like CarbonAware SDK for real-time carbon intensity data, integrate job scheduling with Hangfire, automate workloads using Powershell, and export relevant metrics with Kubernetes Exporter for KEDA & Prometheus.
• Deployment Environments: Solutions and demos span across on-premises, Azure PaaS, and Kubernetes clusters—showing flexibility for various architectures.
• Dynamic Scaling and Load Shedding: Methods to dynamically scale applications or limit functionality based on power grid carbon intensity are emphasized, alongside techniques to “shed” unnecessary load.
• Data Integration: The session covers how to source and consume prediction data about grid carbon intensity for smarter, environmentally adaptive applications.

Technologies Demonstrated

• CarbonAware SDK
• Hangfire (.NET job scheduling)
• Powershell commandlets (automation)
• KEDA (Kubernetes-based event-driven autoscaling)
• Prometheus (monitoring/exporter)

What You'll Learn

• How to schedule and shift workloads for sustainability (time-shifting)
• Design patterns for carbon-aware job execution
• Ways to automate and monitor environmental impact across development and production
• Applying open source .NET tools for sustainable scaling in cloud and containerized setups

Further Resources

• Playlist: .NET Conf 2025

By embracing these carbon aware design patterns, developers can reduce emissions and promote resource efficiency while maintaining high performance and scalability.