EPRI’s DCFlex Initiative Tackles the Challenge
David Porter is EPRI’s Vice President, Electrification and Sustainable Energy Strategy.
The digital economy is accelerating, and artificial intelligence (AI) is the engine driving it forward. From automated manufacturing to personalized health care and real-time language translation, AI promises to reshape industries and improve daily life.
But the infrastructure supporting that transformation is facing a significant surge in electricity demand. Enter DCFlex, EPRI’s three-year initiative to operationalize flexibility in data center electricity use and better align digital growth with grid capacity.
From Modeling to Reality
What sets DCFlex apart is its emphasis on field demonstrations, not just models and theories, but real-world validation. The initiative’s first three living labs are bringing together industry partners to test flexibility solutions under operational conditions.
Three demonstrations are currently underway:
Sites 1 and 2 are exploring computational flexibility – how AI workloads can be intelligently scheduled or shifted to reduce peak load without degrading performance. Site 3 examines how a data center responds to power quality events, helping to establish best practices for reliability and resilience by providing ancillary services to the grid.