Virtual Transmission Lines from Data Center Workload Migration: Coordinated Multi-Year Transmission Expansion Planning

The rapid growth of electricity demand from AI data centers is creating a dual mismatch in power systems: a temporal mismatch between fast-rising demand and slow transmission expansion, and a spatial mismatch between concentrated data-center loads and geographically dispersed renewable resources. These mismatches can exacerbate transmission congestion, resulting in unserved data-center load and renewable-energy curtailment. This study models geographic workload migration as a virtual transmission line (VTL) that changes nodal data-center demand without transferring physical electricity. A mixed-integer linear programming model is then developed to co-optimize multi-year candidate-line construction and workload migration, subject to construction delays, renewable-energy curtailment, unserved data-center load, workload-balance requirements, communication-bandwidth constraints, and link-latency limits. The model is evaluated over an eight-year planning horizon on a modified IEEE 14-bus system. The results show that coordinating VTL with physical transmission expansion reduces total system cost, unserved data-center load, and renewable-energy curtailment while alleviating transmission congestion. VTL-aware planning also requires one fewer candidate line than build-only planning. However, VTL alone cannot meet system demand and does not eliminate the need for physical transmission reinforcement. Sensitivity analysis indicates that VTL provides the greatest value when transfer capacity is tight, construction costs are high, load growth is rapid, and data-center flexibility is greater. Additional validation on the IEEE 118-bus system over a five-year planning horizon shows that coordinated planning retains its cost and reliability benefits while reducing physical expansion requirements.