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Grid Operational Benefit Analysis of Data Center Spatial Flexibility: Congestion Relief, Renewable Energy Curtailment Reduction, and Cost Saving

Haoxiang Wan, Linhan Fang, Xingpeng Li

TL;DR

Rapid growth in data-center demand and the integration of variable renewables create grid congestion and higher curtailment risk. The authors propose data-center spatial flexibility as a grid resource and implement an optimal power flow framework that co-optimizes generation, reserves, renewable use, and distributed data-center loads across a modified IEEE 73-bus system. Key results show that fixed, concentrated data-center deployments can cause significant congestion (up to 30.1% overload) and infeasibility, while spatial load redistribution eliminates violations and cuts solar curtailment by up to 61%, with economic savings saturating around 20–30% transferable workload. The findings suggest spatially flexible data centers could defer transmission upgrades and improve renewable utilization, though future work should address stochastic renewables, unit commitment, and cross-layer coordination.

Abstract

Data centers are facilities housing computing infrastructure for processing and storing digital information. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented growth in data center capacity, with global electricity demand from data centers projected to double by 2026. This growth creates substantial challenges for power transmission networks, as large concentrated loads can cause congestion and threaten grid reliability. Meanwhile, the intermittent nature of solar and wind generation requires flexible resources to maintain grid reliability and minimize curtailment. This paper assesses whether data center spatial flexibility-the ability to migrate computational workloads geographically-can serve as a grid resource to address these challenges. An optimal power flow model is developed to co-optimize generation dispatch, security reserves, and flexible data center loads. Case studies on a modified IEEE 73-bus system show that inflexible data center placement can lead to severe transmission violations, with line overloads reaching 30.1%. Enabling spatial flexibility mitigates these violations in the studied scenarios and restores system feasibility. This flexibility also reduces solar curtailment by up to 61.0% by strategically reallocating load to solar-rich areas. The results suggest that spatial flexibility offers a viable approach to defer transmission upgrades and enhance renewable utilization.

Grid Operational Benefit Analysis of Data Center Spatial Flexibility: Congestion Relief, Renewable Energy Curtailment Reduction, and Cost Saving

TL;DR

Rapid growth in data-center demand and the integration of variable renewables create grid congestion and higher curtailment risk. The authors propose data-center spatial flexibility as a grid resource and implement an optimal power flow framework that co-optimizes generation, reserves, renewable use, and distributed data-center loads across a modified IEEE 73-bus system. Key results show that fixed, concentrated data-center deployments can cause significant congestion (up to 30.1% overload) and infeasibility, while spatial load redistribution eliminates violations and cuts solar curtailment by up to 61%, with economic savings saturating around 20–30% transferable workload. The findings suggest spatially flexible data centers could defer transmission upgrades and improve renewable utilization, though future work should address stochastic renewables, unit commitment, and cross-layer coordination.

Abstract

Data centers are facilities housing computing infrastructure for processing and storing digital information. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented growth in data center capacity, with global electricity demand from data centers projected to double by 2026. This growth creates substantial challenges for power transmission networks, as large concentrated loads can cause congestion and threaten grid reliability. Meanwhile, the intermittent nature of solar and wind generation requires flexible resources to maintain grid reliability and minimize curtailment. This paper assesses whether data center spatial flexibility-the ability to migrate computational workloads geographically-can serve as a grid resource to address these challenges. An optimal power flow model is developed to co-optimize generation dispatch, security reserves, and flexible data center loads. Case studies on a modified IEEE 73-bus system show that inflexible data center placement can lead to severe transmission violations, with line overloads reaching 30.1%. Enabling spatial flexibility mitigates these violations in the studied scenarios and restores system feasibility. This flexibility also reduces solar curtailment by up to 61.0% by strategically reallocating load to solar-rich areas. The results suggest that spatial flexibility offers a viable approach to defer transmission upgrades and enhance renewable utilization.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 13 sections, 9 equations, 3 figures, 5 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Formulation of the Optimization Model
  3. Objective Function
  4. Network and Generation Constraints
  5. Security and Reserve Constraints
  6. Renewable and Flexible Demand Modeling
  7. Model Discussion
  8. Case Studies
  9. Case Study 1: Fixed DC Congestion Impact
  10. Case Study 2: Baseline Flexibility Evaluation
  11. Case Study 3: Flexibility Threshold Analysis
  12. Case Study 4: Solar Curtailment Management
  13. Conclusion

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: DC load distribution comparison: Fixed vs. Optimized deployment under flexibility constraints.
  • Figure 2: Average System LMP Across Transfer Limit Scenarios
  • Figure 3: Solar curtailment comparison across load scenarios under fixed and optimized DC operation.