Advanced Alternative Energy Research Labs
Every joule has a job. We check whether it did it.
AAERL audits the energy account of machines: energy in, energy stored, energy spent on useful decisions, and energy lost to overhead and heat. Our method, JL-26, the Joule Ledger, makes every energy figure state where it was measured and whether the books balance.
Five accounts. Every joule in one of them.
The Joule Ledger assigns every joule that enters a system to one of five accounts: Intake, Reserve, Work, Overhead and Waste. The accounts must balance. If they do not, the result is reported as "not closed", with its residual, never adjusted. See the five accounts and the closure rule.
| Account | What it records |
|---|---|
| Intake | All energy entering the system, from any source |
| Reserve | The change in stored energy over the period |
| Work | Energy that produced completed useful decisions or tasks |
| Overhead | Energy that keeps the system able to work: cooling, idle draw, power conversion |
| Waste | Energy that left as heat without doing work or overhead |
The boundary is the contract
Most energy figures cannot be compared because they were measured at different places: a chip, a board, a rack or a whole facility. JL-26 makes every result name its meter point, M1 to M4, and forbids comparisons across different ones.
M3 · Rack
The complete system at the wall, matching the MLPerf Power data-center boundary.
Why now
The International Energy Agency puts data-center electricity use at about 485 TWh in 2025, and projects about 950 TWh by 2030 (IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI). In the EU, the Commission adopted a mandatory A-to-G rating scheme for data centers on 21 September 2026, with first labels due in August 2027 (Latham & Watkins, 25 September 2026). Buyers, operators and regulators need figures that can be checked.
Free tools
Ledger closure checker
Enter your five account totals and see whether the ledger closes within your stated uncertainty. Nothing leaves your browser.
Energy per decision
Turn measured energy and passing tasks into Decision Yield, and compare an operation with the Landauer limit.
Worked examples
One ledger that closes, one that does not, and how the residual is diagnosed.
Start with the book. Grow into the license.
| Step | Offer | Price | Annual limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Every Joule Has a Job (textbook) | $296 | 3,000 |
| 2 | Joule Ledger Assessment | $9,800 | 300 |
| 3 | Advisory | $5,000 a month | 300 |
| 4 | Enterprise license | $120,000 a year | 300 |
Prices rise 10% each year. A price you have paid stays fixed for the period you paid for; the increase applies from your next purchase or renewal, and we tell you before it does. Prices and terms.
What JL-26 is, and is not
JL-26, the Joule Ledger, is a proprietary measurement method published by AAERL. It is not a consensus standard and has not been adopted by any standards body or regulator. An audit grade (Declared, Witnessed or Replicated) says who checked a result and how. It is not a certification, an accreditation or a regulatory approval. We describe energy with numbers, units and meter points. We do not call any system "green", "sustainable" or "clean" without the figures that support it.
Questions
What does AAERL stand for?
Advanced Alternative Energy Research Labs. We publish the Joule Ledger method and audit machine energy against it.
Is JL-26 an EU or ISO standard?
No. It is AAERL's own published method. Its Overhead Ratio follows the PUE definitions of ISO/IEC 30134-2:2026, and the EU reporting crosswalk shows how its accounts relate to EU indicators.
What does it cost to start?
The textbook, $296. The free closure checker costs nothing.
Sources
Keep reading
Take the next step.
AAERL audits the energy account of machines: energy in, energy stored, energy spent on useful decisions, and energy lost to overhead and heat. Our method, JL-26, the Joule Ledger, makes every energy figure state where it was measured and whether the books balance.