Wedoany.com Report-Jan 17, Utility holding company Southern Co.’s microgrid subsidiary, PowerSecure, will supply backup and on-site power generation and electric distribution for developer Edged’s new data center facilities in Atlanta, the companies announced Thursday.
The Edged Atlanta campus includes a recently completed 27-MW data center within an overall 168-MW critical Information Technology site. A second 100-MW data center is under construction and a third 41-MW facility is planned.
PowerSecure will support backup power needs for Edged with its PowerBlock microgrid-ready gen-sets. These are ultra-low emission diesel-powered generation certified to meet Tier 4 Final standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Tier 4 is the most rigorous EPA emission standard for stationary diesel engines, according to the company. The Edged facilities are designed to reduce overhead energy consumption about 74% compared to previous sites, while handling advanced cooling systems and high-density artificial intelligence (AI) workloads.
"PowerSecure is proud to team with Edged and to bring an innovative solution to our customers with a strong commitment to sustainability in this constantly evolving global technology and infrastructure environment,” said Chris Cummiskey, PowerSecure CEO, in a statement. “Tremendous load growth is affecting utilities nationwide, and we are excited to see PowerSecure emerging as a critical service provider in the data center landscape.”
The rise in AI, cloud-based and hyperscale data center capacity is challenging utilities which were forecasting flat load growth only a few years ago. Researchers McKinsey & Co. late last year predicted that data center growth could average 22% annually and reach a yearly load of 219 GW, nearly 50 GW higher than current capacity.
An extra 50 GW is the power generation equivalent to about 50 new nuclear reactor units. Many tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle are exploring new partnerships to invest in future small modular reactor projects or expand current nuclear generation capacity.
Edged also has developed data center projects in Dallas, Kansas City, Phoenix, Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago. The company has additional sites in Europe.
The PowerSecure-Edged collaboration is focused around more traditional, but lower greenhouse gas-emitting backup power technologies. The two companies have agreed to a six-year alliance.
PowerSecure, acquired by Southern Co. for close to $425 million in deal which closed in 2016, is the parent company’s entity focused on distributed energy resource infrastructure. Microgrid development is a central component of the PowerSecure's actions, including some 2 GW of distributed generation systems deployed overall.
PowerSecure also supports clients with energy efficiency and load management technologies. Experts from PowerSecure will be participating in a session at the upcoming Microgrid Knowledge Conference at the Sheraton Dallas.
