Verrus, which develops data centers designed to be flexible grid assets, announced today that it has successfully run a demonstration of its technology in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy laboratory.
The company, a venture of Alphabet’s spinout Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, emerged from stealth in early 2024. And this month, it used a testing software platform connected with 70-megawatt infrastructure at NREL’s energy labs in Colorado to validate the performance of its data centers under real-world grid conditions.
Jeff Bladen, Verrus’ head of energy, told Latitude Media that the demonstration is the first public example of “what a truly flexible data center can look like,” and proof that the technology “is ready for use now.”
The technology includes demand response capabilities that allow Verrus’ data centers to curtail their load up to 100% within one minute of receiving a signal from the utility. The data centers would do so by transitioning to using power from utility-scale batteries, automatically and without interruptions. This is essential for turning data centers into assets the grid and the utility can rely on.
“Over the last year, we’ve seen a breakdown in the utility and data center relationship,” Bladen said. “Utilities are no longer able to meet the needs of data centers, and data centers are building at a scale that doesn’t line up with what utilities can provide.”
As a result, interconnection queues for large customers have ballooned, with wait times reaching 10 years in some areas. It’s a headwind that risks delaying around 20% of planned data center projects globally, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency.
Major investments in new infrastructure are certainly needed to meet the demand — but recent studies have shown that the U.S. grid has over 100 gigawatts of spare capacity that could be tapped just by embracing load flexibility solutions like the one Verrus has just demonstrated.
A ‘complete departure’ from traditional data centers
Embedding flexibility in new data centers is increasingly popular. Some developers, for example, are looking at microgrids to provide the power necessary for data centers to turn into flexible grid assets, and the Electric Power Research Institute has put together a global coalition to explore how data centers can be leveraged as flexibility assets for the grid.
But Bladen says Verrus’ efforts are “well ahead” of what’s being developed by the coalition.Verrus’ technology “is a complete departure from the way data centers have traditionally been designed,” he said. It hinges on two innovations: a unique electrical distribution network, and the use of utility-scale batteries as a primary backup for the entire data center campus.
“We started with a blank sheet of paper design, where we created a data center [with] a single medium voltage electrical distribution network that distributes [electricity] down to the local buildings and data halls and data rings, moving it around seamlessly across the entire campus,” Bladen explained. Despite using well-understood technology, “that’s a first in the industry,” he added.
Thanks to this distribution network, Verrus is able to minimize the amount of unused power in a data center, improving its efficiency by up to 30% compared to a traditional data center — and giving it more bandwidth to be flexible.
“One of the ways we can provide flexibility is by dispatching down the HVAC system in a way that allows them to shift from using electricity from the grid to instead using electricity from the battery,” Bladen said.
The utility-scale batteries are the other key part of Verrus’ design. Unlike more traditional backup sources, such as diesel generators, batteries can be operated multiple times a day, don’t need refueling, and can be discharged to offer the grids hundreds of minutes of flexibility. During moments of peak load or emergencies, Verrus’ data centers can discharge their batteries and relieve the utility from having to supply them with electricity.
Each data center building developed by Verrus, which will have 50 MW of compute capacity and 20 MW of other electrical demands, such as HVAC, will be equipped with its own utility-scale battery, with a storage capacity of 70 MW for four hours. The modular units can be assembled together in a larger data center campus, in which they’re all connected by the same electrical distribution network.
For now, though, the commercial applications are theoretical. Verrus hopes to break ground on its first data centers later this year, and be ready for service for its customers in late 2026.
