Rethinking Load Growth: Assessing the Potential for Integration of Large Flexible Loads in US Power Systems

Publisher

Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Duke University

iCopyright | Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/10161/32077

A key solution to the United States' soaring electrical demand—driven by unprecedented electricity needs from data centers and their booming artificial intelligence workloads, alongside other consumers—is load flexibility. Flexibility allows large electricity users to temporarily reduce consumption during periods of grid stress by shifting workloads, utilizing on-site generation, or adjusting operations. By leveraging flexibility, new large loads can be interconnected more quickly while reducing the need for premature investment in additional power plants and transmission lines—offering a hedge against uncertainty in future electricity demand in light of the release of DeepSeek.

This national-scale analysis provides a first-order estimate of how much new flexible load could be added across the 22 largest US balancing authorities, which collectively serve 95% of the grid. The study introduces a new concept—curtailment-enabled headroom—to describe how much additional load the grid can absorb using existing capacity, with only modest, short-duration reductions in usage. The findings highlight a significant opportunity: nearly 100 GW of large new loads could be integrated with minimal impact, supporting economic growth while maintaining grid reliability and affordability.