arXiv · 2610.16918
A Power-Trajectory Framework for Data Center Participation in Day-Ahead Markets
Abstract
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving substantial growth in data center electricity demand. Interval-based energy blocks in day-ahead markets do not explicitly retain predictable intra-interval demand evolution, potentially creating mismatches with ramp-feasible generation trajectories and affecting settlement. This paper proposes a power-trajectory framework in which data centers declare predictable aggregate demand evolution through continuous demand-side power trajectories before market clearing. The declared trajectories are treated as exogenous inputs for constructing generation trajectories and the corresponding price trajectory. For feasible market-clearing outcomes, physical temporal consistency is established through continuous-time power balance and satisfaction of the modeled generation operating constraints, while economic temporal consistency is established by preserving the dispatch-price correspondence in energy settlement on a common temporal basis. Under the adopted settlement definitions, a trajectory-based settlement analysis separately quantifies the monetary magnitude of representation-induced power imbalances and the supply-side compensation that may remain under temporally consistent clearing and settlement. An illustrative 5-bus case demonstrates the elimination of representation-induced power imbalance and identifies the timing and physical sources of supply-side compensation. A modified IEEE RTS-GMLC case further illustrates these compensation effects across multiple generating units under workload-driven data center demand variations.
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Menghan Zhang, Caisheng Wang. 2026-10-12. A Power-Trajectory Framework for Data Center Participation in Day-Ahead Markets. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16918
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