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

TL;DR

This paper investigates how data center spatial flexibility can alleviate grid congestion, reduce renewable energy curtailment, and save costs through an optimal power flow model and case studies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to leverage data center workload migration as a flexible resource for grid stability and renewable energy integration.

Findings

Spatial flexibility mitigates transmission line overloads up to 30.1%.

It reduces solar curtailment by up to 61.0%.

Enabling flexibility restores system feasibility in stressed scenarios.

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.