EPRI Addresses Data Center Power Demand with New Program: DCFlex

EPRI launched a new initiative that will coordinate real-world demos in data centers and electricity markets: DCFlex. The new collaborative program explores how data centers can support the grid, enhance asset utilization, and accelerate the energy transition.

“Data centers play a critical role in today’s interconnected global information-sharing environment and economy, but along with increased manufacturing and movement towards electrification, they are placing additional power needs on the electric grid,” said Arshad Mansoor, EPRI President and CEO. “Flexible data center design and operation is a key strategy for accelerating AI development and realizing its benefits while minimizing costs, lowering carbon emissions, and enhancing system reliability.”

Leading the charge, EPRI’s DCFlex will establish up to 10 flexibility hubs to establish data center and power supplier strategies, enabling operational and deployment flexibility, streamline grid integration, and transition backup power solutions to grid assets. Demonstrations will begin in early 2025, with testing projected beyond 2027.

The initiative will coordinate real-world flexibility demonstrations in current and planned data centers and electricity markets, generating reference architectures and shared learnings to benefit electricity consumers.

DCFlex founding members:

• Compass Datacenters
• Constellation Energy
• Duke Energy
• Electric Reliability Council of Texas
• Google
• Meta
• New York Power Authority
• NRG Energy
• NVIDIA
• Pacific Gas and Electric
• PJM Interconnection
• Portland General Electric
• QTS Data Centers
• Southern Company
• Vistra Corp.

DCFlex Background

Recently, electricity demand has been rising due to several factors: industrial onshoring, transport electrification, digitization, and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Per an EPRI white paper, hyperscaler electricity usage more than doubled from 2017 – 2021 and is expected to continue rising, with data centers slated to consume 5 – 9% of domestic electricity generation per year by 2030.

The DCFlex initiative follows discussions with the Department of Energy and the data center, technology, utility, and research communities. These discussions prompted the Secretary’s Energy Advisory Board report earlier this year: Powering AI and Data Center Infrastructure Recommendations. The report emphasized the need for collaboration among key stakeholders in powering data centers, supporting the broader economy and advancing AI technology.

Data center server room; image credit: Microsoft

In the electric sector, AI advancements help to manage the grid more efficiently by integrating distributed resources, demand response, variable renewables, and energy storage with utility-scale grid resources. These processes can accelerate the energy transition while keeping electricity low cost and reliable.

EPRI at POWERGEN 2024

In January 2024, speaker Marc Lemmons of EPRI led the technical session, The Future of Hydrogen and Ammonia Firing. Lemmons discussed the emerging interest in hydrogen and ammonia firing in the wake of large corporations making commitments to net-zero targets. He also covered the technical challenges of co-firing hydrogen and ammonia, including the economic, political, and thermodynamic roadblocks present within the power generation industry.

Lemmons gave a detailed outline of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent ruling regarding the retirement of coal plants. Coal-fired power plants have been the hardest hit by the EPA’s 111(d) ruling, which aims to retire coal power significantly by 2030. If the EPA’s plan is successfully executed, coal may be reduced to a total power generation share of 80 GW with 90% of the plants outfitted for carbon-capture applications. Coal fleets are retiring at an elevated rate due to greenhouse gas and CO₂ emissions associated with their operation.