Coordinating GPU Data Centers and Power Grid Regulation Service for Exogenous Carbon Benefits

TL;DR

This paper proposes a framework for GPU data centers to coordinate with power grids, reducing reliance on fossil-fueled regulation reserves and achieving net carbon savings.

Contribution

It introduces the Exogenous Carbon metric and EcoCenter framework to quantify and maximize the carbon benefits of data center participation in regulation services.

Findings

Data center participation can lead to significant Exogenous Carbon savings.

EcoCenter framework effectively increases regulation provision from GPU data centers.

Participation can outweigh operational carbon emissions, achieving net carbon reduction.

Abstract

The rapid growth of AI/ML data centers has led to higher energy consumption and carbon emissions. The shift to renewable energy and growing data center energy demands can destabilize the power grid. Power grids rely on frequency regulation reserves, typically fossil-fueled power plants, to stabilize and balance the supply and demand of electricity. This paper sheds light on the hidden carbon emissions of frequency regulation service. Our work explores how modern GPU data centers can coordinate with power grids to reduce the need for fossil-fueled frequency regulation reserves. We first introduce a novel metric, Exogenous Carbon, to quantify grid-side carbon emission reductions resulting from data center participation in regulation service. We additionally introduce EcoCenter, a framework to maximize the amount of frequency regulation provision that GPU data centers can provide, and thus, reduce the amount of frequency regulation reserves necessary. We demonstrate that data center participation in frequency regulation can result in Exogenous carbon savings that can outweigh operational carbon emissions