It's Tuesday. Thomas Edison lost the current wars in the 1890s. AI racks headed toward 1 MW apiece are giving him a rematch.
In today's edition:
🔌 Big Story: ABB launches an 800V DC power portfolio for AI data centers
⚡ Quick Hits: a 2.8 GWh salt-cavern battery, 45-month solar queues, flexible interconnection, 22.5 GW behind the meter, motor drives
💰 Capital: DOE backs $4.2B of Vistra uprates
📋 Policy Watch: Maryland batteries, Virginia's AI-funded plan, an Alaska transmission line
The Big Story
ABB launches source-to-rack DC power for AI data centers
ABB launched Infinitus, a portfolio of direct current power systems for data centers moving to 800V DC architectures, as Nvidia and hyperscalers prepare for GPU racks that could reach 1 MW each, Data Center Dynamics reported. ABB calls it the industry's first integrated source-to-rack DC portfolio, and says the first DC-native facilities using the full range should be operational within two to three years.
"Infinitus is the first portfolio providing the building blocks for any data center architecture - either DC native or hybrid AC/ DC - to power next-generation AI chips efficiently." Giampiero Frisio, president of ABB's electrification business area
ABB says DC distribution could deliver energy efficiency gains of more than 5%, which at large campuses could add up to megawatts of capacity.
The range includes ABB's solid-state transformer technology and a static medium-voltage UPS, which the company says are in production.
ABB says it is working with chipmakers, hyperscalers and industry bodies on DC standards.
Source: Data Center Dynamics
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Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Five items on storing, connecting and shrinking the load.
China Huaneng finished full-system startup of the 700 MW Jintan salt-cavern compressed air storage project with China Salt Group, which stores 2.8 GWh per cycle at more than 70% round-trip efficiency; grid-connection testing comes next. ESS News
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found the median wait for permission to operate was 45 months for 1-5 MW distributed solar projects in 2020-2025, versus 2 months under 30 kW across 2.7 million applications. pv magazine USA
Arizona Public Service has about 400 MW of flexible interconnection agreements and SPP has about 15 GW of large-load applications, but an APS executive said control-room software was not built for dynamic curtailment at that scale. Latitude Media
Enverus forecasts 22.5 GW of new US behind-the-meter data center demand through 2030, requiring 31.6 GW of new generation, 29.6 GW of it gas. Power Engineering
Toyota spent $1.25 million on variable frequency drives at its Georgetown plant and saves more than $700,000 a year, Canary Media reported, while only 16% of US industrial motors use the drives. Canary Media
The Capital Stack
DOE backs up to $4.2B of Vistra nuclear uprates
DOE's Office of Energy Dominance Financing made a conditional loan commitment of up to $4.2 billion for uprates at Vistra's Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania and its Davis-Besse and Perry plants in Ohio, POWER reported. The work would add 433 MW and preserve nearly 4 GW of existing generation, with power ascension scheduled from 2031 to 2034. The commitment is conditional, so final terms still have to close.
Source: POWER
Also in the capital stack:
Torch Systems raised $11.5 million, $9.5 million in SAFE equity from investors including Khosla Ventures plus $2 million in SVB debt, for grid monitoring sensors, with 300 units deployed in seven states and 800 backordered. Axios
Crunchbase counts $159 billion in global venture funding in Q3, with energy and data centers each raising $10 billion or more while AI took 64%. Crunchbase News
Policy Watch
Maryland regulators conditionally approved 440 MW of four-hour batteries, Chalk Point (400 MW) and Jade Meadow III (40 MW), for 15-year capacity credit awards, about half of the 800 MW Round 1 sought. A second round is due by Jan. 1, 2027, so developers get another shot. Energy-Storage.news
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's energy plan keeps the 2050 carbon-free target, models 85% demand growth and estimates the tech sector would cover $265 billion of $422 billion in system costs through 2050. Data center demand flexibility is one of its core pathways. Canary Media
DOE committed $150 million in Defense Production Act funds to the Alaska Energy Authority's $418 million, 223-mile Beluga-Healy transmission line, on Alaska's Railbelt grid. T&D World
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