Propeller-powered underwater vehicles have long helped scientists explore and monitor aquatic environments. But they’re limited by their own mechanics: Spinning blades can snag on vegetation, stir up sediment and startle the wildlife they’re often sent to study, making them poorly suited to shallow creeks, dense weeds or close encounters with fish.Propeller-powered underwater vehicles have long helped scientists explore and monitor aquatic environments. But they’re limited by their own mechanics: Spinning blades can snag on vegetation, stir up sediment and startle the wildlife they’re often sent to study, making them poorly suited to shallow creeks, dense weeds or close encounters with fish.[#item_full_content]
Nonuniformities can be a big deal on a manufacturing line. But they can be tough to identify in materials measured on a nanometer scale, as Alex Bordovalos came to appreciate during an internship with a solar cell manufacturer integrated into his master’s program at The University of Toledo.Nonuniformities can be a big deal on a manufacturing line. But they can be tough to identify in materials measured on a nanometer scale, as Alex Bordovalos came to appreciate during an internship with a solar cell manufacturer integrated into his master’s program at The University of Toledo.Hi Tech & Innovation[#item_full_content]
Utilities are facing an unprecedented volume of requests for new data center interconnections as AI demand skyrockets—and many are reverting with outdated plans to build large, centralized fossil fuel power plants even though cleaner and cheaper options are available.
A growing body of research shows the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable way to power the AI era isn’t more fossil fuels that cost customers and the climate. It’s flexibility, storage, and clean generation brought directly by the customers driving the demand, increasingly known as Bring Your Own Power (BYOP).[1]
How to “BYOP”
If managed effectively, data centers can help cut rising consumer electricity costs. To start, these power-guzzling facilities should bring their own clean energy assets to the system—enabling new large loads to become assets rather than burdens on the grid.
Utility rate design and smart policy should encourage BYOP.
Rate structures like a Clean Transition Tariff[2] or on-site clean energy parks[3] incentivize data center customers to bring their own new clean generation. Meanwhile, thoughtful policy could expedite interconnection[4] for data centers that meet the right conditions, further encouraging those large consumers to position themselves as grid assets. This can include projects that commit to participate in a demand flexibility program, projects sited where the grid already has spare capacity, and projects co-located with solar-plus-storage or other clean resources.
The cost of powering data centers with fossil fuels
Faced with rapid new demand not seen in decades, many utilities and developers have fallen back on old habits—adding gas plants, refurbishing aging and uneconomic coal units, or striking nuclear partnerships alongside massive grid upgrades. This “firm fixation”[5] is an outdated belief that only always-on, firm resources and major transmission builds are best-suited to serve data centers.
In reality, meeting America’s data center-driven demand growth with a fossil-fuel-heavy strategy would add an estimated $29.7 billion annually to customer bills by 2030, according to a recent Energy Innovation analysis.[6] A clean energy approach, by contrast, would reduce the overall cost of meeting that load growth by $5.1 billion a year in 2030 compared to the high-fossil path, saving consumers 17 percent over that period.
The cost risk worsens when accounting for fuel price volatility. A spike in coal and gas prices like the one the U.S. experienced in 2022—a plausible scenario, given increasingly unpredictable extreme weather and geopolitical instability—would add $40.5 billion a year[7] in costs under a fossil-heavy scenario. Clean energy[8] would curtail that burden by $8.4 billion,[9] for total savings of $13.5 billion a year relative to staying reliant on fossil fuels.
Myopically focusing on firm power also overlooks two critical ideas. First, generation and demand are part of one interconnected system, not two separate problems. Second, data center load is dynamic and would benefit tremendously from modular flexible approaches[10] suited to today’s grid.
That matters most at the point of interconnection, which is the moment of maximum leverage for government officials to ensure new entrants cover the costs they trigger. This is a critical period to steer large loads like data centers toward flexible demand and local storage that ease bottlenecks, and to align tariffs with actual cost causation and reward flexibility.
Bring your own flexibility (BYOF) can complement BYOP
Flexibility can be a grid resource in and of itself. Innovative rate design can allocate costs to data center customers in proportion to what those customers create for the system, ensuring flexibility commitments earn lower rates or reduced upfront costs in return.
Flexibility can look like data centers participating in demand flexibility programs, shifting computing workloads, trimming operations, or leaning on (clean) backup power and on-site storage during stressed grid hours. Utilities that actively manage data center demand this way can meet load growth while avoiding new gas plants or grid upgrades altogether which benefits these facilities by speeding up their grid connection.
Flexibility’s potential impact is significant. Duke University’s Nicholas Institute found that the grid could absorb roughly 100 gigawatts of new data center load[11] nationwide without any new peak generation if those data centers curtail just 0.5 percent of their annual electricity use during peak-demand hours.
Energy parks can build economic hubs through BYOP
Energy parks are another great example[12] of the BYOP model. As wind, solar, and battery storage costs continue to fall, they’re attracting large retail and wholesale customers willing to take on more of the cost and responsibility that utilities traditionally carried in exchange for faster, cheaper access to clean power.
Energy Parks Graphic
For large consumers, energy parks offer bespoke solutions and remove real barriers to getting the low-cost, clean electricity they need while creating economic hubs that generate community benefits without generating local air pollution.
Energy parks can bundle multiple clean energy sources and co-locate them with the consumer, such as a factory or data center, all tied to the grid through a single point of interconnection. That single-point design speeds development and spreads infrastructure costs, while directly connecting complementary resources. If set up in this way, data centers could send unused power back to the grid when it’s needed or continue to power themselves when the grid is plentiful.
They’re also modular, meaning storage, load, and generation can all be added behind the same point of interconnection as needs evolve. That modularity delivers several benefits: sharing a single high-voltage transformer can meaningfully cut equipment costs; combining supply- and demand-side projects can make it easier to capture tax credits, green certificates, and local economic development incentives; and the arrangement can evolve as market conditions and project needs change.
The data center boom doesn’t have to mean dirty air and expensive bills
The data center boom doesn’t have to mean a return to fossil fuels. In fact, such an approach risks saddling customers with billions of dollars in unnecessary costs per year.
Data centers that bring their own clean generation, commit to flexibility, and co-locate with storage aren’t just easier on the grid—they’re cheaper, faster to interconnect, and more resilient to fuel price shocks. In other words, bringing their own power is a deal that benefits both sides of the equation.
The choice utilities and regulators make in the next few years—whether to lean into flexibility, storage, and clean generation, or fall back on the “firm fixation”—will shape electricity costs for everyone. The solutions to get this right already exist. What’s needed now is the rate design and policies to put them to work.
[1] George Sakellaris, “Why Data Centers Will Need A ‘Bring Your Own Power’ Strategy,” UtilityDive, 2026, https://www.utilitydive.com/news/why-data-centers-will-need-a-byop-strategy-bring-your-own-power/812004/.
[2] Brendan Pierpont, Matthias Fripps, and Michelle Solomon, “Let The Sun In: Clean Energy Is The Cheapest Way To Meet Rising Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/report/let-the-sun-in-clean-energy-is-the-cheapest-way-to-meet-rising-demand/.
[3] Eric Gimon, Mark Ahlstrom, and Mike O’Boyle, “Energy Parks: A New Strategy To Meet Rising Electricity Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2024, https://energyinnovation.org/report/energy-parks-a-new-strategy-to-meet-rising-electricity-demand/.
[4] Brendan Pierpont, “Data Center Demand Flexibility,” Energy Innovation, 2025, https://energyinnovation.org/report/data-center-demand-flexibility/.
[5] Eric Gimon, “Dodging The Firm Fixation For Data Centers And The Grid,” Energy Innovation, 2025, https://energyinnovation.org/report/dodging-the-firm-fixation-for-data-centers-and-the-grid/.
[6] Brendan Pierpont, Matthias Fripps, and Michelle Solomon, “Let The Sun In: Clean Energy Is The Cheapest Way To Meet Rising Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/report/let-the-sun-in-clean-energy-is-the-cheapest-way-to-meet-rising-demand/.
[7] Brendan Pierpont, Matthias Fripps, and Michelle Solomon, “Let The Sun In: Clean Energy Is The Cheapest Way To Meet Rising Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/report/let-the-sun-in-clean-energy-is-the-cheapest-way-to-meet-rising-demand/.
[8] Energy Innovation, “Video: How Clean Energy Helps Grid Reliability,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/multimedia/video-how-clean-energy-helps-grid-reliability/.
[9] Brendan Pierpont, Matthias Fripps, and Michelle Solomon, “Let The Sun In: Clean Energy Is The Cheapest Way To Meet Rising Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/report/let-the-sun-in-clean-energy-is-the-cheapest-way-to-meet-rising-demand/.
[10] Lydia Brown, “What Is An Energy Park?,” Energy Innovation, 2026, https://energyinnovation.org/expert-voice/what-is-an-energy-park/.
[11] Jason Plautz, “Study Finds Headroom On The Grid For Data Centers,” E&E News, 2025, https://www.eenews.net/articles/study-finds-headroom-on-the-grid-for-data-centers/.
[12] Eric Gimon, Mark Ahlstrom, and Mike O’Boyle, “Energy Parks: A New Strategy To Meet Rising Electricity Demand,” Energy Innovation, 2024, https://energyinnovation.org/report/energy-parks-a-new-strategy-to-meet-rising-electricity-demand/.
The post Bring Your Own Power: How Data Centers Can Solve Their Own Energy Problem appeared first on Energy Innovation.
A growing body of research shows the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable way to power the AI era isn’t more fossil fuels that cost customers and the climate. It’s flexibility, storage, and clean generation brought directly by the customers driving the demand, increasingly known as Bring Your Own Power (BYOP).
The post Bring Your Own Power: How Data Centers Can Solve Their Own Energy Problem appeared first on Energy Innovation.[#item_full_content]
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