Let's make our GitHub Actions carbon-aware!

[drydenwilliams]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
This reops GitHub Actions uses ubuntu-latest (also arm) but using this tag runs all the jobs in Azure (high-grid intensity) regions ... cough cough (350gCO2/kWh). We can make this better, more carbon-aware.

Describe the solution you'd like
Swap the runs-on tag to CarbonRunner's carbon-aware runner. Finding the most low-carbon region and runs your jobs there. It saves 90% of emissions, 25% per minute cost (free for open-source projects) and is 40% faster than GitHub.

[VIKTORVAV99]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
This reops GitHub Actions uses ubuntu-latest (also arm) but using this tag runs all the jobs in Azure (high-grid intensity) regions ... cough cough (350gCO2/kWh). We can make this better, more carbon-aware.

Describe the solution you'd like
Swap the runs-on tag to CarbonRunner's carbon-aware runner. Finding the most low-carbon region and runs your jobs there. It saves 90% of emissions, 25% per minute cost (free for open-source projects) and is 40% faster than GitHub.

Since we are operating in this space that's certainly interesting but how do you determine the carbon intensity of the datacenter of where to run the job? Are you using our API perhaps?

[julian-st]

It says this Next, we look at where the job ran, and determine the carbon intensity of that cloud region at the time of execution. We then look at live energy generation data of all regions within our multi-cloud. This shows the real-time carbon intensity of electricity in grams of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour (gCO₂/kWh) for that location. on their page but no mention what API or source they are using for the live data. I sent them an email to ask about the source. Here is their answer We actually get the majority of the data from the same sources as them (electricitymaps) just using our own integrations. Electricity Maps data is very expensive if we use their API, so currently not an option for us. Have you tried CarbonRunner yet? Why do the actions use both ubuntu-latest and ubuntu-latest (arm)?

[julian-st]

I asked again for the sources and this was their answer

UK data is coming from Elexon
US data is coming from EIA + all other relatime sources like CAISO etc...
EU data is coming from ENTSOE
etc....

Our stack is Golang and so we've rolled our own scrapers a few years
ago, so we're not using the electricity maps scrapers.

Another question from my side is why do the actions use ubuntu-latest and ubuntu-latest (arm)? Is it necessary to run some of the actions on arm?

[VIKTORVAV99]

I asked again for the sources and this was their answer

UK data is coming from Elexon
US data is coming from EIA + all other relatime sources like CAISO etc...
EU data is coming from ENTSOE
etc....

Our stack is Golang and so we've rolled our own scrapers a few years
ago, so we're not using the electricity maps scrapers.

Another question from my side is why do the actions use ubuntu-latest and ubuntu-latest (arm)? Is it necessary to run some of the actions on arm?

Currently no requirement but they are more power efficient than the non arm versions. But we had some issues when we initially rolled them out which is why we don't have it for all the actions.

Regardless this is a major shift in infrastructure and possibly in secret management so we'll have to be very sure about how this works and currently there are too many uncertainties.

[VIKTORVAV99]

Based on this answer:

We actually get the majority of the data from the same sources as them (electricitymaps) just using our own integrations. Electricity Maps data is very expensive if we use their API, so currently not an option for us. Have you tried CarbonRunner yet?

We are not going to use them until we can get clarity on why they claim to use our data on their website yet say they don't here. And also we do flowtracing on the grid to also take into account exchanges which means there can be a significant discrepancy of what they say is best vs what our system says is best.

Both of these need to be clarified before we can do anything.