Limiting the Impact of AI Data Centers on Fatigue Life of Thermal Turbine Generators in the Grid: A Frequency-Domain Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a frequency-domain framework to evaluate and limit AI data center load variations' impact on turbine generator fatigue life, ensuring grid stability and longevity.

Contribution

It introduces a three-step process combining frequency analysis, load flow, and optimization to quantify and manage AI data center load fluctuations on power systems.

Findings

The approach accurately predicts turbine fatigue damage due to load variations.

It effectively ranks candidate sites for AI data centers based on impact.

Scalability is demonstrated on large synthetic power systems.

Abstract

A framework is established that assesses the impact of variations in artificial intelligence (AI) data center (DC) loads on the fatigue damage of steam/gas turbines of the synchronous generators (SGs) from torsional oscillations. Next, a simple three-step process that is supported by frequency-domain analysis is laid out to quantify the limits on fluctuations in AI DC loads. In the first step, the maximum allowable variation in electrical power output at each SG terminal is independently determined from the first principles. This step needs only a lumped multi-mass model of the mechanical side of the SG. In the second step, we propose a new approach that relies on load flow to determine the so-called algebraic `interaction factor' that maps the change in AI DC load at a given bus to the corresponding change in each of the SG power outputs. In the third step, we propose a screening method to rank the candidate buses to site AI DCs and solve an optimization problem to determine the optimal allowable fluctuations in the AI DCs. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach through frequency-domain and time-domain analyses in the modified IEEE 4-machine and IEEE-68 bus systems using a dynamic phasor framework. Finally, we demonstrate the scalability of the proposed approach on the synthetic 2000-bus Texas system.