Abstract

This paper assesses hyperscale data center hosting capacity in transmission grids. Hosting capacity (HC) analysis quantifies the maximum additional load a bus can accommodate without violating operational constraints. This paper defines data center HC as the maximum time-invariant active power demand at a single target bus over a 24-hour peak-day horizon, and evaluates it under four models of increasing fidelity (i.e., the extent to which the model enforces real-world operational security requirements) on the modified IEEE 24-bus system: (i) DC optimal power flow (DC-OPF) without unit commitment (UC), (ii) basic SCUC (security-constrained unit commitment) without reliability constraints, (iii) SCUC with spinning reserve, and (iv) N-SCUC with both reserve and branch-contingency security. Comparing these models quantifies the impact of unit commitment, reserve requirements, and N-1 security on bus-level HC estimates. The N-SCUC yields an average HC of 444 MW; omitting N-1 security raises this to 532 MW, a 19.8% overestimation. The DC-OPF and basic SCUC models further overestimate HC, indicating a trade-off between model complexity and estimation accuracy.

Index Terms

Data center, High-fidelity model, Hosting capacity, Optimal power flow, Security-constrained unit commitment

Cite this paper:

Haoxiang Wan, Linhan Fang, Jonghwan Kwon, Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, Jianyi Yang, Jaya Yellajosula, Fan Jiang, and Xingpeng Li, “Impact of Security Modeling Fidelity on Hyperscale Data Center Hosting Capacity Assessment”, IEEE PES Grid Edge Technologies Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, Apr. 2027.