Flexible Data Centres, not flexible enough?
The industry’s obsession with data-center flexibility as a grid savior is a dangerous distraction. While massive loads can flex, they can’t solve the local feeder-level failures that actually break the system. Real grid stability in the AI era won’t be built on a few giant batteries—it requires a foundation of massive, distributed DER deployment.
Joti Mangat
12/4/20251 min read
“Data-centre flexibility will save the grid.”
This is a dangerous, wishful thought at the center of the AI energy conversation. 🔥
🤖 — AI data centres can flex.
👍🏾 — that’s good news.
But let’s be clear:
👉 A 200 MW “flexible” data centre is still a single point load sitting at the wrong voltage level to solve the problems that actually break grids.
It cannot fix:
• neighbourhood transformer overloads
• evening feeder peaks
• EV clustering pressure
• local voltage collapse
• hosting-capacity limits
And real operators know the truth no one wants to say publicly:
🤖 AI workloads don’t always flex when the grid needs them to.
Training overruns, inference spikes, replication cycles — all of it can block curtailment.
So here’s the reality:
The more we rely on big flexible loads, the more essential small distributed flexible loads become.
To make “big flex” safe, you need thousands of micro-flex nodes:
🔋 home batteries
☀️ rooftop PV
🚗 shiftable EV charging
🔄 V2H/V2G
🔥 flexible heat pumps
🧠 feeder-level orchestration
DER-as-a-bonus? 👎🏾
DER-as-the-foundation for AI-era grid stability ✅
Without massive DER deployment, data-centre “flexibility” is one firmware update away from becoming a liability.
DER + VPP engineers — what failure modes are people still underestimating as AI load explodes?