WS3: Grid Planning for Operational Flexibility

This report considers interconnection requirements regarding modeling, performance, ancillary services, and co-located generation. Of these requirements, the most well established for both the US and Europe are those focused on power quality. Both regions are also seeing focused requirements emerging for data centers and hydrogen electrolysis loads. For those differences, the review indicates that between the two regions, Europe has generally more defined requirements for load interconnection and some of its areas have stricter performance requirements during degraded system voltage and frequency conditions.

This report provides an initial perspective on strategies and data to help electric sector planners project regional data center load growth. This working paper is an internal DCFlex project deliverable. The intent is to improve strategies for forecasting over the three years of the project, leveraging the DCFlex community’s diverse knowledge and perspectives.