Big Tech Companies Say They Need Resilience and Clean Energy. How Microgrids Help
Resilience, clean energy, storage, transmission upgrades and microgrids were top of mind for big tech companies speaking at a recent conference, The Great Transformation: A Data Center and Energy Innovation Summit in Bend, Oregon.
Representatives from Intel, Google and Amazon pointed to the need to meet burgeoning power demand with resilient, clean energy during panels and interviews. They offered solutions such as new transmission technologies that can improve grid capacity.
In addition, an Amazon panelist said the company is staying on track to deploy renewables in spite of the phaseout of the investment tax credit (ITC) for wind and solar under the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” law.
At the conference, microgrid advocates explained how microgrids and other distributed energy resources (DERs) not only provide resilience but can yield a return on investment by participating in utility programs that lower peak demand.
The high cost of outages at Intel
Achieving resilience is a critical goal for Intel, said Rami Khouri, vice president of platform engineering group and general manager of data center hardware engineering at the company. If there’s an outage at a fabrication facility, the company has to recalibrate and reset equipment.
“I would say a one-hour outage costs basically millions of dollars,” Khouri said in an interview with Microgrid Knowledge. “That’s why we have our own generators as backup. But we need it to be clean; it’s extremely important.”
Google also wants to avoid outages, and its focus is on easing transmission constraints, said Dylan Sullivan, energy market development strategic negotiator at Google. The company last month announced it’s collaborating with CTC Global to accelerate the development of next-generation transmission technology for the U.S. power grid. CTC Global’s high-capacity conductors can quickly boost grid capacity and reliability, he said. Google is working with CTC Global to identify transmission line developers and utilities interested in this technology.
“Selected partners in projects are going to gain access to a powerful combination of resources, including workforce training, cost assistance and technical analysis,” Sullivan said.
20,000 line miles of gross new transmission needed
A report, “Connected West,” from Gridworks found that peak demand will increase by 100 GW by 2045, Sullivan said. The study also found that gross new transmission needed by 2045 to meet increasing power demand is above 20,000 line miles, with only about 25% of that total available from planned upgrades. The report said that reconducting upgrades, co-locating new lines and high-capacity conductors could meet a significant portion of new transmission capacity.
“Our collaboration with CDC Global is not going to solve all those 20,000 miles, but we do think we'll be able to generate the kind of experiences and positive reports that can influence other users,” Sullivan said.
Google announced on July 25 that it’s partnering with energy storage company Energy Dome to provide carbon-free energy to the grids that power the company’s operations.
Amazon to move forward with renewables despite ITC changes
Also top of mind during the conference was the effects of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” law on renewable energy deployment. During a panel discussion, Nate Hill, head of energy policy at Amazon, was asked how the Big Beautiful Bill law’s phaseout of the ITC for solar and wind would affect the company’s development plans.
“We've made this net-zero commitment by 2040. We have a track record
of deploying partnerships with renewable developers for the last 10 years and that was through a lot of different variations of the ITC,” he said. “We all remember, I think, the old days when that used to roll off and then come back.”
Amazon continues to work with partners to deploy wind, solar and energy storage, along with small nuclear reactors in the medium- and long-term, he said.
“I think we're going to be looking at those and how they're impacted, but I think
our pipeline is going to go forward with this,” Hill said.
How microgrids provide resilience and yield savings
Moving forward with microgrids is also a good idea for data centers, panelists said during the conference and interviews.
Bobby Butler, director of sales at ELM MicroGrid, said that microgrids provide important resilience during outages, but also can yield a return on investment by participating in utility programs.
“You also want to be able to get that daily return on investment,” Butler said. “You want to be able to participate in demand response programs. You want to do daily peak shaving. You want to do time-of-use shifting of the solar array.”
Distributed energy resources (DER) can reduce costs, cut the use of fossil fuels, help out the grid and meet corporate sustainability goals, said Jason Carver, director of engineering at Ameresco during an interview.
“If you put DERs in–whatever your primary generation is–you
can reduce the strain on the grid. You may be able to get by with less transmission,” Carver said. Providing resiliency without fossil fuels is another benefit. Reducing peak power usage with DERs will cut demand charges, he added.
Microgrids can also be deployed more quickly than fossil fuel generators, helping meet the need to power data centers as soon as possible, panelists noted.
Batteries as “Olympic athletes”
Whether they’re helping meet sustainability goals or providing resiliency, batteries have an important role to play, said Jon Miller, development director, renewables at McKinstry, which focuses on building projects.
“We have these battery systems which I honestly believe are remarkable. These things are Olympic athletes,” he said. “Batteries can do 10 to 20 different things and they can do them better than almost anything that we have–from backup power, frequency response to voltage regulation to arbitrage through time of use programs,” he said.
One of the advantages of microgrids, panelists said: Microgrids offer important flexibility to provide data center power, whether they’re integrating energy storage, solar, small nuclear reactors or standing ready to integrate new technologies as they are developed.
About the Author
Lisa Cohn
Contributing Editor
I focus on the West Coast and Midwest. Email me at [email protected]
I’ve been writing about energy for more than 20 years, and my stories have appeared in EnergyBiz, SNL Financial, Mother Earth News, Natural Home Magazine, Horizon Air Magazine, Oregon Business, Open Spaces, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, Renewable Energy World, Windpower Monthly and other publications. I’m also a former stringer for the Platts/McGraw-Hill energy publications. I began my career covering energy and environment for The Cape Cod Times, where Elisa Wood also was a reporter. I’ve received numerous writing awards from national, regional and local organizations, including Pacific Northwest Writers Association, Willamette Writers, Associated Oregon Industries, and the Voice of Youth Advocates. I first became interested in energy as a student at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, where I helped design and build a solar house.
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