Impact of Wide-Scale Data Centre Growth on Power System Operation with Large Share of Renewables

Driven by the large-scale adoption of cloud-based technologies, the past decade has experienced tremendous data centre growth around the globe. In addition to ongoing increases in energy consumption from the sector, the proliferation of data centres also induces a number of electrical network challenges. In this study, their potential to contribute to demand flexibility is analysed, exploring the trade-off between available flexibility and system energy costs, in a day-ahead electricity market. Data centre operation is modelled within a least cost energy mixed integer formulation for the 2030 Irish electricity sector, sourcing 70% of electrical demand from variable renewables. Subsequent impacts on generation and demand schedules, energy costs, renewable energy curtailment, emission levels, plant operational hours, etc. are evaluated, in order to demonstrate how large-scale data centre growth can affect a system’s ability to meet its renewable obligations.