A partnership was announced between InfraPrime, a provider of net zero as-a-service for datacenters, and Instant ON, a microgrid designer, builder, and aggregator, announced a partnership in which the two will co-develop a net-zero microgrid service for datacenters named PowerShell.
Following a lifecycle sustainability assessment, InfraPrime designs an on-premises microgrid, often featuring solar and energy storage. Designed for reliable electric supply and resiliency, InfraPrime said the PowerShell allows for no more than five minutes of downtime per year, meeting 99.999% uptime expectations.
“The path to carbon negative … will take ambition and action. By teaming up with industry innovators and experts, we can take the steps in the right direction.” said AJ Perkins, President of Instant ON.
Microgrids promote remote preparedness, said Instant ON, meaning that they can be operated independently of the larger utility grid. For California data operators, this is particularly important for datacenters in a landscape of increased wildfires, planned public safety grid shutoffs, and the increased risk of further extreme weather due to climate change.
The microgrid works with the utility, interconnecting with the larger grid to support resiliency initiatives and lower solar curtailment levels.
InfraPrime’s net zero as-a-service is flexible across scales, from large campuses with 200-400 MW loads, to a 180 kW custom data rack. The service is billed based on the customer’s IT energy usage on a monthly lease payment, preventing the cost from being capital expenditure.
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“The microgrid works with the utility, interconnecting with the larger grid to support resiliency initiatives and lower solar curtailment levels. ”
It’s good to hear this, but if one follows the rooftop solar fights across the country, and especially now in CA, it’s hard to believe the utilities work with anyone on growing the amount of distributed generation. In retrospect, though, the current NEM 3.0 proposal in front of the CPUC here in CA does in fact exclude businesses from the massive solar tax they are proposing.
The utilities need to accept the existence and growth of individual and community-level as well as business-level distributed generation in a comprehensive plan that maintains fairness across the grid and allows individual and community level investments in distributed generation to realize a benefit in a reasonable time frame.