Power grid operators worldwide typically rely on coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to maintain a spinning reserve, or excess capacity, that can respond quickly and provide grid services. Using the data centre’s batteries to provide these services reduces the need to maintain spinning reserves at power plants, thereby lowering power sector carbon emissions.The batteries are part of the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the data centre. This includes new technology that enables real-time interaction with the electric power grid. If grid-interactive UPS systems replace the grid services currently provided by fossil fuel power plants. JLM covers the advanced new battery chemistries for spike demand in Data Centres due to AI requirements, a trillion-dollar market.
Microsoft (MSFT) plans to invest $80B in data centres this year to keep up with demand from its cloud-computing business and support its growing AI endeavours.
That’s the takeaway from the company's recent announcement about slower-than-expected growth in its Azure cloud computing platform. And this is a problem not isolated to Microsoft. The demand spike driven by AI is an issue plaguing the entire sector and will have ripple effects across the economy in the coming years. All told, Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG), Meta (META), Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft have earmarked close to half a trillion in new data center projects to support growth in artificial intelligence and cloud computing capacity.
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AI is emerging as a pivotal, high-growth catalyst within the renewable energy sector, increasingly serving as the system’s “brain” to enhance efficiency, reliability, and profitability. Given the inherent intermittency of wind and solar generation, AI has become indispensable for ingesting and interpreting vast data streams, improving generation forecasting, optimising storage dispatch, and coordinating smart-grid operations. By enabling real-time balancing of supply and demand, AI reduces curtailment and operating costs while reinforcing overall grid resilience. Industry leaders such as Vestas, ENERCON, JinkoSolar, and First Solar are deploying AI at scale to boost operational performance, lower costs, and strengthen asset reliability. Data centres are emerging as a major, rapidly expanding, and strategically consequential driver in the renewable energy landscape, propelled largely by surging electricity demand from AI workloads. In response, hyperscalers and colocation operators are accelerating investment in sustainable power solutions to meet rising loads while advancing decarbonization commitments.
Technology firms are increasingly partnering with utilities and energy developers to lock in renewable supply for data centre operations, reflecting the scale and persistence of AI-led demand growth. For example, Google and NextEra Energy announced a collaboration in December 2025 to develop gigawatt-scale AI data centres powered by clean energy, while Equinix partnered with CleanMax on a 33MW captive renewable power project. After second-term policy shifts under President Donald Trump, renewable energy is entering a “two-speed” expansion: US federal support is tilting toward fossil fuels and away from green incentives, slowing deployment and raising costs, while the global transition continues, driven by falling costs, corporate demand, grid economics, and non‑US policies.By contrast, China’s clean-energy economy is accelerating. In 2025, clean energy drove over 90% of incremental investment growth, and renewable manufacturing and installation contributed more than a third of overall economic expansion. As a result, global renewables are increasingly decoupling from US federal policy, with the US facing slower rollout, while the rest of the world scales to record investment and capacity additions.
Why Do Data Centers Use Batteries?
Backup Power from 30 seconds to a long duration 48 hours
Reduce carbon footprint
Batteries can help reduce their reliance on diesel generators, a major carbon emission source. Become carbon-negative, water-positive, and zero waste by 2030 for most Fortune 500
Improve energy efficiency
Batteries can help improve the energy efficiency of its data centres.
Balance the power grid
Batteries can help balance the power grid when renewable energy sources like wind and solar fluctuate.
Backup with Natural Gas switching from off-peak hours & peak sharing with electric providers
Grid-interactive batteries
These batteries can interact with the power grid to provide energy when needed.
Battery energy storage systems (BESS)
BESS systems that can provide longer-duration backup power.
companies under agreement
NEXTECH BATTERIES, INC
Carson City, Nevada 89706
Founded in 2016 to leverage Li-S energy storage technology developed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories into production. The corporation is venture-capital backed and privately funded, conducting internal research and development programs to enable LiS chemistry through production. With the successful implementation of NexTech’s current Li-S chemistry, the company is under contract with the California State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to design and demonstrate a grid-integrated battery energy storage system that utilises the unique Li-S battery cell at a utility-scale. In addition, it designs, develops, and fabricates a compatible battery management system to demonstrate and verify the performance data. The project scales up the Li-S battery module system into a grid-integrated system to install, commission, monitor, and collect performance data.
TECHNICAL SPECS
BUSINESS PLAN
PROPOSITION
NEXTECH MANAGEMENT DECK
A low-cost H2 data centre with a guaranteed feedstock is on the table for any site. The simplest is a fuel cell that converts to electric power for internal use or back to the grid. Our approach to monetising a process called methane pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is most commonly used to treat organic materials and refers to their decomposition in the absence of, or with limited amounts of, oxygen. Our method is a simpler, one-step process compared to the traditional two-step SMR/WSR steam reforming process. We can support most countries outside the United States, and we like to zero in on Australia & New Zealand.
Hago's waste-to-methane-H2 market covers the dairy sector, with farms producing additional revenue is a strong play for continuous feedstock.
data centers business plan
REN Energy International Corp.
Kelowna, British Columbia
Gasification of residual wood to green gas with strong government support. REN was selected by Foresight Canada as one of the Top 50 Most
Investable Canadian Clean Fuel Startups — reinforcing institutional confidence in REN’s strategy and execution capability
FACT SHEET
companies under PRIOR agreement
CERENERGY® Batteries Germany / Australia
CERENERGY is a game-changing Solid State Sodium Chloride battery for Grid Storage.
Altech Batteries Ltd is commercialising a 120 MWh solid-state sodium chloride battery production facility to produce 1MWh batteries for the renewable energy and grid storage market.
The CERENERGY® Batteries are ultimately fire and explosion proof, operate in an extensive temperate range, have a long life of over fifteen years, can be charged and discharged up to three times per day, and do not use lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite or manganese. The battery technology uses common table salt, developed by the world-leading German government-owned research and development institute Fraunhofer.
No lithium cobalt graphite, copper, nickel or manganese
Sodium Chloride (Salt? is cheap–Nickel is the only costly ingredient
Game-changing technology for grid storage
5x energy, 6x power
Europe is the expected first plant location. The battery plants can be scaled within a 12 -18 month period.
the future of grid storage batteries
salt batteries
CMBLU ENERGY AG INDUSTRIES
traße 19D-63755 Alzenau- Germany www.cmblu.de
A new technology battery chemistry for a long duration ...The world's best non-lithium battery for energy storage based on cost and performance with a 20+ year life expectancy. A power source solid-state flow battery developed with a long-range 2-22 hours CMBlu develops Energy Storage MW 50W on up utility-scale and additionally high-frequency charging ideally E V charging stations at C -Stores with petro fuel during peak hours.
A new non-lithium chemistry that is extremely safe is made in Germany and 3Q 2024
Energy Storage Power Player of the Year 2024