The Aligned battery offers a concrete example of that kind of research. The utility studied how many times per year the local grid could run out of electricity if the data center got built. Aligned and Calibrant had their own calculations of how big the battery would need to be to compensate, Martin said, “but the validation of that, and the actual specification of that, came out of the interconnection study done on the utility side.”
Due to the local nature of the power constraint, the battery had to be built close to Aligned’s facility; the company ultimately provided the land to host the grid storage installation. In other cases, where a proposed data center runs up against a system-wide capacity constraint, a battery solution could be further away.
Another glimpse of the battery-enabled future came this summer when Redwood Materials, a richly funded battery-recycling startup, unveiled a new business line that repackages old EV batteries to serve data-center demand. The first installation, at Redwood’s campus near Reno, Nevada, fully powered a very small, modular data center using a solar array and a field of former EV battery packs laid out on the desert floor.
Redwood just got its own vote of confidence in that concept: On Thursday, it raised another $350 million from investors including AI-chip leader Nvidia.
Business model protects other utility customers
Aligned’s commitment to paying for the battery itself could serve as a model of socially responsible AI-infrastructure development.
Some utilities around the country are jumping to build new power plants to support the projected data-center buildout, and charging their regular customers for the investment, hoping the AI titans eventually become paying customers. But this approach risks saddling consumers with unnecessary costs if the AI hubs don’t materialize.
Because Aligned is footing the bill, the utility’s other customers won’t be forced to pay for the data-center firm’s growth ambitions. But, though this one large customer will provide the land and funding, the battery will sit on the utility side of the meter. That means the utility can leverage the tech for other grid uses, like frequency management and capacity, when it’s not maintaining the flow of power to the data center during otherwise scarce hours.
In this case, Martin said, the permitting and buildout could move faster with the battery connecting to the utility grid instead of directly to the data center. In other situations, bigger batteries on the customer side of the meter might make more sense. Calibrant is already working on more and even larger batteries for the AI sector, he added.
“Whereas right now, we think this is unique, I think over a relatively short time horizon it’s going to be much more common,” Martin said. “It’ll start to look surprising if we don’t see projects like this at the largest loads as they connect [to the grid].”
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Great Job Julian Spector & the Team @ Canary Media Source link for sharing this story.
