But these systems are unsustainable for several reasons:
According to the 2025 US Department of Energy report, power plant retirements plus load growth increases the risk of power outages by 100x by 2030.
Many diesel generators in the marketplace are nearing end of life, without adequate capacity or performance to keep up with power demands.
Generators only cover critical loads and operators set “power cap” policies that slow servers or drop tasks whenever power might be lost.
More frequent run time and variable loads can degrade performance of generators and shorten the lifespan of UPS batteries.
“Grey space,” or mechanical and electrical support inside the building, can make up nearly 50% of modern data center designs.4 Outside, generator yards and step-up transformers can take up a significant portion of the total real estate.
Diesel generators emit carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxides, leading regulatory agencies (including the US EPA) to limit run time to 100 hours at full load per year.5
With AI and cloud computing demanding more power than ever before and our economy depending on it, it’s time to rethink the way we power data centers.
As the first utility-grade network deployed at your site, Virtual Utility® is a next-generation microgrid created for power-intensive data centers.
A set of modular, scalable units, known as the R3Di® System, each provide 1 megawatt of natural gas-fired power and battery energy storage and can easily be stacked to meet your data center’s growing needs.
The system can be connected to the grid, providing instantaneous backup power even for multi-day outages, or run independently from and integrate with any power source, including renewables.
AI-powered software, known as Grove365®, works alongside a network operations center to monitor asset utilization, weather, grid conditions and market prices to determine the best time to deploy the R3Di® System based on your goals.
It’s clear data centers need more than backup power—they need resilient, scalable and space-efficient power that eliminates distortions and load-shedding. Virtual Utility® delivers continuous uptime, reduces emissions by 90% and requires no interconnection agreement. Take the first step to future-proofing your data centers.
