In his 15 years deploying distributed batteries and electric vehicle charging networks, Vic Shao kept facing the same constraint: the power grid itself.
In 2021, Shao sold his EV charging company, Amply Power, to BP. And this January, he left the company to focus on an infrastructure problem that has long plagued him.
While at BP, he told Latitude Media, the company typically had around 60 construction projects happening at once, touching 20-odd utilities across the U.S.
“Every single one of them was a service upgrade,” said Shao. “When you get to that type of sizing, the answer from the utility is often: ‘we have no idea how long it’s going to take. File this application service upgrade request and we’ll get back to you.’”
Those grid connection delays — sometimes stretching to five years or more — are not just an inconvenience. They threaten the charging network business model itself.
“If the answer is five years, it means that as a charging operator, as a for-profit entity, we have no idea how to budget our resources, we don’t know where to hire, we have no idea what our revenue forecast looks like,” said Shao. “In other words, we don’t have a business.”
Now, Shao thinks the solution is to bypass the grid entirely. His new company, DC Grid, launched today with a novel approach to powering energy-intensive infrastructure: modular direct current systems that can be deployed much faster than traditional grid upgrades. While EV charging presents an immediate use case, DC Grid is eyeing an even more pressing power challenge: data centers.
Rather than waiting for utilities to build new transmission lines and transformers, DC Grid is focused on bringing modular power generation directly to a site — while also eliminating the back-and-forth conversion between AC and DC power that reduces efficiency.
“If you open up the cabinetry [of a typical DC fast charger], what you’ll learn is that a lot of the components inside are based on alternating current,” explained Shao. “When you have 300 kilowatts and 5% waste heat, that’s 15 kilowatts of heat that you have to sink. And that requires liquid cooling.”
Shao brings years of credibility to the space. He co-founded the distributed storage company Green Charge Networks in 2009, which was sold to Engie in 2016. Two years later, he founded the EV fleet charging company Amply, which was acquired by BP. So far, DC Grid has been self-funded by Shao. The team is made up entirely of engineers — including Shao himself.
“I started DC Grid because I felt like it’s a need that’s not being addressed in the marketplace,” he said. “Unless it’s addressed, EVs won’t scale very fast, and data centers won’t scale very fast.”
Putting together the generation
DC Grid’s systems are inspired more by modular furniture, rather than by traditional electrical infrastructure. “Everything is assembled on-site,” said Shao. “I use the phrase assembly very specifically here because there is no digging, no trenching, no construction… it’s kind of like an IKEA furniture kit.”
The most complex part of the business model is pairing the generation resources, which will include a mix of renewables, batteries, and gas.
“First, where it’s possible, it’s solar and storage to get to a true zero-emission generation source,” said Shao. “But for the most part that is not possible. A lot of the projects that we’re looking at are port authorities, airport taxi charging at urban centers.”
In these urban locations, the company will primarily rely on natural gas generators, with plans to eventually incorporate renewable natural gas (RNG) to lower emissions.
The company plans to offer several options for fuel delivery depending on the site. Where natural gas pipelines exist, DC Grid can connect directly. For sites without pipeline access, the company will set up local storage tanks and truck in compressed natural gas — though Shao acknowledges that trucking “adds to the expense.”
For larger-scale deployments, like data centers, the company will seek to diversify power sources.
“The objective is to have 20 megawatts here of gas generation, 20 megawatts of something else, as much solar and battery storage as you can get, and cobble something together to meet 100 megawatts and for each of the technology’s components to stay within regulatory requirements and maximums,” Shao explained. “When it comes to data centers, 100 megawatts is table stakes,” said Shao.
Generation sources combine at a DC combiner box outside the facility, then feed 1,500 volts DC directly into the building. Inside, DC Grid’s power shelf converts the power to 48 volts DC at each server rack, powering the servers directly.
The efficiency gains are significant. Traditional AC-to-DC conversion in data centers operates at around 96% efficiency. “When you do DC to DC, it’s 99% efficient,” said Shao. “Three percent may not sound like a whole lot, but when the data center is three megawatts of waste heat being pumped inside the data center, which you will then need to have extra HVAC systems to cool, we think it’s upwards of 10% of energy and power savings.”
The company plans to launch its data center power shelf product in late Q2 2025. While Shao comes from the EV charging world and wants to initially focus on that market, he acknowledges that “in the immediate future, a lot of the conversation will be around data centers because of the sheer heft and scale of each location.”
