While the AI-fueled rise in energy demand has stolen the media spotlight, another just-as-critical but less discussed piece of the data center puzzle is waiting in the wings for its time in the limelight: utility approval.
Yes, demand is surging, but without an “okay” from the local utility, a freshly built data center could end up with its computers sitting cold if the utility isn’t prepared to approve a long-term large load request.
“Data centers and large industrial users have told us that they have a hard time getting megawatts at all, let alone getting them fast,” Matt Barnes, the chief commercial officer at Calibrant Energy, told ESS News. Calibrant provides large energy users with onsite energy solutions. “If you go about it a certain way, you can turn the ‘No, you can’t have power’ into a ‘Yes, you can have power, under these conditions.’”
One of the best ways to sweeten the deal and streamline the path to power? Onsite energy storage and power generation.
Barnes explained that the inclusion of a battery can allow data centers to synthetically reduce their apparent load during peak hours, which may be enough to change the calculus and flip that rejection into an approval.
Here’s what it could look like in practice. A data center wants 100 MW; let’s say the utility reviewed their request, compared that with future coverage projections and found that during the hottest summer hour, there’s only enough capacity to give the data center 50 MW.
“In a lot of cases, the utility would either say ‘No’ to taking on the project entirely or would only accept it if the data center agreed to build a 50 MW facility instead of a 100 MW one,” he said. That cuts the data center’s growth in half. But, with on-site storage, data centers can come back with a counteroffer. “We’re now able to say that in those hottest hours, we can use our battery to reduce the data center’s net load such that it stays below the 50 MW level you can give us at that time.”
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