This discussion paper presents a practical framework to help power system planners evaluate how much additional load, particularly from rapidly growing data centers (DCs), can be integrated without expanding generation, storage, or transmission infrastructure. As DC growth creates unprecedented planning challenges and opportunities for the electricity sector, the framework defines and quantifies available system “headroom” through a staged analytical approach. This approach combines probabilistic resource adequacy assessments to capture operational uncertainty; hourly nodal operations simulations to represent generator constraints and transmission limits; sub-hourly operations simulations to account for fast-response dynamics such as load variability and ramping; and power flow analyses to evaluate locational risks and transmission reliability requirements. At each stage, the framework compares inflexible and flexible DC operating profiles, demonstrating how DC flexibility—aligned with EPRI’s Flex MOSAIC™ flexibility classes—can mitigate reliability risks and unlock additional capacity. The paper also highlights practical considerations for realizing this headroom, including co-simulation of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs), and positions the framework as a complementary tool to follow-on analyses supporting faster, reliability-conscious large-load interconnection planning.
Authors Nidhi R. Santen