Capacity planning of MDC-SHES considering load transfer characteristics

Abstract Data centers are recognized as major energy consumers in the modern digital economy. The low-carbon transformation of these facilities is considered an urgent task. In this paper, a capacity planning method for multiple data centers with shared hydrogen energy storage is proposed. The data center loads are classified into interactive loads and deferrable loads. A temporal shifting model is established for deferrable loads. The spatio-temporal complementarity among multiple data centers is utilized. A shared hydrogen energy storage framework is developed. The framework consists of electrolytic cells, hydrogen tanks, fuel cells, and thermal storage systems. The decoupled operation of hydrogen production, storage, and utilization is exploited. A combined heat and power model is established for thermal energy utilization. A cooperative game theory approach is adopted for capacity optimization. An improved Shapley value method is proposed for fair cost allocation. Case studies are conducted to verify the proposed method. The investment cost is reduced by 30.2 % under the shared storage mode. The carbon emission cost is reduced by 41.9 %. The utilization efficiency of energy storage resources is significantly improved.