McAvoy: Data centers are funding off-site batteries to speed up grid interconnection
Sean McAvoy · Battery booms and the rise of flexibility [partner content] · Mar 30, 2026 · at 21:27
Sean McAvoy describes the 'bring your own capacity' model where data centers co-fund utility grid battery deployments to expedite interconnection approvals.
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“We are seeing data centers like, you know, and even retail Energy providers who are coming to a utility hand in hand and saying, look, we want to put a data center here. I'm the retail energy provider. I'm going to provide this data center with energy. I needed to get an interconnection, but we're also willing to put batteries down in areas of congestion on your grid to alleviate that congestion on the grid. And it may be kind of like close to where the data center is, but it's not like directly like On the land of the day data center. So you can use batteries to alleviate congestion in certain areas and data centers are willing to pay for that.”
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