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With grid interconnection delays exceeding three or four years, BESS helps data center builders and operators achieve longer-duration energy management

This is part-2 of a 3-part series on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), in which we talk to Juan González Martínez, Energy Manager USA for Mexico City-based IGSA Power, which specializes in manufacturing power generators and providing infrastructure for critical IT and medical operations.

RCRTech: Juan, in part -1, we looked at why BESS is gaining traction as a standalone or as part of a hybrid solution for longer-duration energy management solutions. With grid interconnection delays sometimes exceeding four years, how can BESS help data center operators get up and running in months rather than years?

JGM: This really depends on the BESS technologies. For Example, the Tesla Megapack is a massive BESS used by utilities and large businesses. While 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds) is incredibly fast for a mechanical system, it is an “eternity” for sensitive electronics. That’s why it’s good to consider a hybrid solution of BESS and UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) online.

If BESS is being used as a bridging power asset, it can energize the data center’s critical loads immediately,  while the grid connection is still under construction. BESS can act as a temporary, standalone supply that allows phased IT commissioning. For example, if a 100 MW campus installs a 50 MW / 200 MWh BESS and brings 30 MW of server halls online in 8 months, that means you have something years before the substation expansion completes.

RCR: Why is centralized, large-scale BESS more effective for AI campuses?

JGM: The reason is better techno-economic cohesiveness for massive, synchronized loads. AI campuses have highly concentrated, millisecond-scale power swings, as with GPU training spikes. A single large BESS delivers campus-wide synthetic inertia, frequency regulation, and peak shaving with one control architecture, avoiding coordination lag of scattered smaller units. By discharging batteries during periods of high demand, you can avoid expensive “demand charges” from utilities.

For example, a 500 MW AI cluster uses a centralized 200 MW / 800 MWh BESS that absorbs 40 MW sudden load steps in under 5 milliseconds, preventing voltage sags no distributed fleet could correct in time.

RCR: Can BESS be used to create ‘behind-the-meter’ microgrids that allow data centers to operate completely independently from an overtaxed grid during emergencies?”

JGM: Yes, as the backbone of an “islandable” behind-the-meter microgrid. This resolves the technical challenge of running a power grid without a main utility connection (like a “microgrid” during a blackout). BESS + on-site generation (gas turbines, fuel cells, solar) can disconnect from the grid and sustain the entire facility in “island mode,” managed by the BESS’s fast-forming grid. For example, if a 30 MW data center has something like a wildfire-triggered shutoff, you could have 15 MW solar, 40 MWh BESS, and backup generators that operate entirely off-grid for 72 hours. In that scenario, the BESS could ensure zero-break transfer as well as voltage stability. The island always require a BESS Grid-forming technology solution. It has different uses, so we plan according to the load profile and the requirements of each customer’s needs.

Stay tuned for part 3 on BESS, which will focus on energy arbitrage, peak shaving, and demand charge management.