A method includes a step of storing in a memory efficiency characteristic information for each of a plurality of air conditioning units in a location containing a plurality of server computers, the efficiency characteristic information including information representative of an efficiency performance curve for a range of variable cooling output. The method also includes identifying a current thermal load on each of the plurality air conditioning units. The method further includes employing the stored efficiency characteristic information and the current thermal load to identify a first air conditioning unit having a least additional power consumption required to increase cooling output. One or more processing units are employed to allocate one or more processing tasks to one of the plurality of server computers based on the identified first air conditioning unit.