_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Behnam Zakeri
increases, societies are increasingly relying on data centers for data sovereignty, industrial competitiveness, and the broader benefits of AI.“ That’ s why we should resist a blanket rule in either direction, with governments instead focused on reforming connection policies to enable the grid to absorb the loads where it creates system value,” Behnam shares.
From his perspective, the solution is to judge each case on its merits.“ The grid was built decades ago on the assumption that its full capacity wouldn’ t be constantly used; instead, there is a lot of capacity, known as headroom, that sits unused,” he explains.“ Using that capacity can be good for
If being flexible solves the major problem of getting connected, this could change the game
everyone, as it would spread the fixed cost of maintaining the grid among the wider community connected to it.
“ However, there is a constraint. If filling that headroom means extending the life of a fossil fuel plant, we may solve the grid connection problem but not the climate problem. Some parts of the grid would be saturated while others have room to spare, often because large users have closed or moved. It’ s where genuine capacity sits, on both the generation and network sides, that a data center can be a positive addition. This is increasingly becoming real policy. In June 2026, The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission( FERC) ordered all six US regional grid operators under its jurisdiction to justify or reform their rules for connecting data centers and other large loads, explicitly combining faster time-to-power with consumer safeguards.”
The deeper change Behnam proposes is for the grid to stop treating data centers as passive loads. Rather than asking how many megawatts are being plugged in and how much planning that requires, he suggests the system should also be asking what the facility can give back on a case-by-case basis.“ We know that data center operators want access to reliable power as quickly as possible,” Behnam adds.“ By collaborating with them, we can make them responsible based on some measurable contributions or value they can bring to the grid, like flexibility or phased connection, in exchange for rapid access. In practice, that means instead of sizing the grid for extreme events that may or may not occur in a tiny fraction of a year, looking at how much absolute additional capacity is coming, in how many phases and what timescale, how much back-up capacity it brings, and how flexible it can be.” Ireland’ s new connection policy has gone further and requires new data centers to provide onsite or nearby generation and / or storage matching their requested maximum import capacity.
What flexibility can do
Behnam’ s research puts this theory to the test with numbers. The team examined the load patterns of 96 UK data centers and calculated how far each could cut its peak import capacity from the grid by adding batteries alone, with no on-site generation – and the answer is, 15 percent for the median site, with larger reductions possible. From the grid’ s perspective, that’ s a huge difference; a 100-megawatt data center
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