Managing data center cluster as non-wire alternative: A case in balancing market

As the demand for Internet services continues to rise, large-scale Internet companies have expanded their data center infrastructure across multiple global regions. The inherent spatial-temporal flexibility in scheduling workloads allows data center clusters to dynamically adjust their power consumption without overloading the transmission network. In this work, we introduce a novel approach for treating a geo-distributed data center cluster as a non-wire alternative resource and explore its potential role in the energy balancing market. Our methodology manages a geographically distributed data center cluster as a balance-responsible entity by employing optimal workload scheduling that considers its inherent spatial-temporal flexibility and market arbitrage opportunities. To achieve this, we develop a two-layer stochastic receding horizon control optimization algorithm to formulate a strategic bidding strategy for the data center cluster. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, we conduct numerical experiments using real-world data center production traces and data from the Nordic balancing market, demonstrating its practical applicability and performance.