Enphase on how distributed energy assets could boost data centers

With data center loads looming and residential batteries evolving from providing backup to becoming grid assets, Krapels argues the industry must move from the old idea of “save with solar” to “get Enphase, get paid.

January 20, 2026 Tristan Rayner

Image: Enphase

From ESS News

At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Marco Krapels, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Enphase Energy, stood with ESS News in front of Enphase’s new bidirectional EV charger to discuss the topic of distributed energy generation and data centers, the “sleeping giant” of EVs, and why bankability can underpin confidence in grid flexibility.

First layer of the “Jensen Cake”

For Krapels, there exists an enormous opportunity within close reach as he identifies the connection between Silicon Valley’s AI ambitions and the data center buildout and distributed solar. He cites a framework used by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at his press conference held a day earlier.

“When Jensen Huang talks about the ‘five-layer cake’ to make AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) happen, the first layer he always talks about is energy,” Krapels says. “Energy is the number one layer in the five-layer ‘Jensen cake.’ I think it’s underappreciated by many, and what’s also underappreciated is that we can do a lot with aggregated, distributed, flexible assets to help fill that gap.”

The context is the arrival of gigawatt-scale loads from data center developers, with names like Stargate building out facilities closer to the trillion dollar mark than billion. These facilities face a dual challenge: the physical constraints of the grid and growing community resistance.

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