The Information: AI power crunch pushes microgrids, grid optimization

[The Information] The Information editor Steve LeVine moderated a discussion with William Mao, vice president of energy infrastructure at Delta Electronics; Allan Schurr, chief commercial officer at ERock; and Brian Janous, co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure, on powering AI data centers. Janous said the grid is underused by about 45% on average because it must accommodate usage peaks, and that a utility saying there is no power for five years means it cannot meet the coldest winter nights and hottest summer days. Schurr said going off-grid is a high-carbon, high-cost commitment and promoted microgrids as a bridge until grid connections arrive, saying a transmission substation takes three to four years to build while a 350 MW microgrid is built in 16 months. Janous said Cloverleaf has delivered about 7 GW of sites in 18 months, with another 10–12 GW in the pipeline. Mao said AI loads are measured in megawatts and fluctuate in milliseconds, and that Delta's solid-state transformers cut conversion stages.