EPRI announced the launch of a new initiative — DCFlex — meant to explore how data centers can support the electric grid, enable better asset utilization, improve interconnection, and support the clean energy transition.
Led by EPRI, DCFlex will coordinate real-world demonstrations of flexibility in a variety of existing and planned data centers and electricity markets. The goal is to create reference architectures and provide shared learnings to enable broader adoption of flexible operations.
Specifically, DCFlex will establish five to ten flexibility hubs, demonstrating data center and power supplier strategies that are meant to enable operational and deployment flexibility, streamline grid integration, and transition backup power solutions to grid assets. The group aims to improve data center efficiency, facilitate data center and utility coordination, and develop enhanced modeling tools for power grid planning. Demonstration deployment will begin in the first half of 2025, and testing could run through 2027.
“Shifting the data center-grid relationship from the current “passive load” model to a collaborative ‘shared energy economy’—with grid resources powering data centers and data center backup resources contributing to grid reliability and flexibility—could not only help electric companies contend with the explosive growth of AI but also contribute to affordability and reliability for all electricity users,” the authors wrote.
After years of flat load growth on the U.S. grid, electricity demand is rising across the economy as numerous factors – including industrial onshoring, electrification of transport, digitization, and the adoption of AI – converge. According to a recent EPRI white paper, electricity usage by hyperscalers more than doubled between 2017 and 2021. This increase is expected to continue, with data centers projected to consume 5% to 9% of U.S. electricity generation annually by 2030, up from 4% today.
In the U.S., data center demand is expected to reach 35 GW by 2030, up from 17 GW in 2022, McKinsey & Company projects. Grid operators and utilities expect to see significant load growth driven by electrification, new manufacturing, and data center development. According to EPRI, 15 states accounted for 80% of data center capacity in 2023, led by Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Oregon, and Arizona. That concentration creates economic opportunities for states hosting data centers, but could also stress the grid.
DCFlex is an outgrowth of discussions with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and many in the data center, technology, utility, and research communities that informed the development of recommendations to DOE from the Secretary’s Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) earlier this year. The recommendations included the need for closer collaboration among all key stakeholders in powering data centers.
The initiative’s founding members include Compass Datacenters, Constellation Energy, Duke Energy, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Google, Meta, New York Power Authority, NRG Energy, NVIDIA, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), PJM Interconnection, Portland General Electric, QTS Data Centers, Southern Company, and Vistra Corp.
