Leveraging renewable oversupply using a chance-constrained optimization approach for a sustainable datacenter and hydrogen refueling station: Case study of California

This work evaluates the sustainability of using curtailed renewable energy to power data centers and provide hydrogen to hydrogen refueling stations. An optimization problem is formulated to minimize the annual system costs for various case scenarios with a chance-constrained optimization approach to handle uncertainties. System components included natural-gas–powered combined cooling, heating, and power systems, electrolyzers, hydrogen fuel cells, heat pumps, hydrogen tanks, and battery energy storage systems. The results revealed that powering data centers with a mix of curtailed renewable energy and fossil fuels (Case 2) was the most economical option. Using only renewable sources (Case 3) allowed for a zero-emission alternative but was the most expensive; the data center powered by fossil fuels had 49,009 tons of annual CO2 emissions. From a sizing perspective, combined cooling, heating, and power systems dominated in Case 2, and for Case 3, a fuel cell was the major power source and a heat pump was the only cooling option. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the annual costs were most sensitive to the technology costs and may reduce capital expenditures in the near future. Overall, this work presents a comprehensive step toward economic and environmentally friendly data centers comprising both operator and investor perspectives. •Effective utilization of curtailed renewable energy for energy demands.•Optimal energy planning for sustainable datacenters & hydrogen refueling station.•Minimization of annual costs for datacenters and hydrogen refueling station.•A chance constrained optimization approach to handle uncertainties.•Sensitivity analysis for influencing parameters.