Dive Brief: Nvidia recently announced some of its rack-scale systems will now include a new power supply unit with energy storage and other features the company claims can smooth power spikes and reduce peak grid demand by up to 30%. The artificial intelligence powerhouse said in a blog post Monday that the PSU with energy storage, plus the hardware and software needed to use it, will be available with its new GB300 NVL72 platform, as well as GB200 NVL72 systems. A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to say when or provide additional details.  Santiago Grijalva, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech, called the new technology “a moderate big deal,” given Nvidia’s role as a dominant player in the space. “But this solution is limited to NVIDIA’s high-end systems,” he wrote in an email. “The solution competes with Tesla’s cooling and Meta’s hardware optimizations, offering a significant but not transformative refinement of existing power management techniques.” Dive Insight: Unlike traditional data centers, data centers that run AI workloads have rapid ramps that the director of reliability services for the Texas Reliability Entity recently compared to the load pattern of a steel mill. This creates problems for grid operators, utilities and the hyperscalers that need the power.  Nvidia said its new system can help address this challenge with a smoothing solution that consists of several mechanisms across three main operational phases: ramp up, steady state, and ramp down. A power cap feature limits power draw at the start of a workload, with the cap gradually increasing. Once steady-state operation is achieved, storage is deployed to control short-term power fluctuations. For ramping down, the GPU can operate in a special power burner mode to ensure a smooth transition rather than a sharp drop, the company said.  The energy storage mechanism is only

A former Millennium Management LLC senior portfolio manager has launched an energy-focused hedge fund with the backing of New Holland Capital, people familiar with the matter said. New Holland typically invests $100 million to $300 million in new funds as a day-one investor and receives revenue shares in exchange, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.  The new fund, Saber Capital, was founded by Steve Barclay and is based in Geneva. Saber will initially focus on global liquids trading — primarily crude oil and refined products such as gasoline and diesel. Representatives for Barclay and New Holland Capital declined to comment.   Volatility in oil markets has surged in response to US President Donald Trump’s trade moves and heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Variables in supply and demand — including how the rollout of fresh sanctions on Russia will reroute oil flows — and whether OPEC and its allies will swell global oil supplies have further clouded the outlook.  Commodities have been a major profit generator for hedge funds in recent years, with giants like Citadel raking in billions. Others such as Qube Research & Technologies are expanding in the space.  Barclay has more than two decades of experience in energy markets and was most recently a senior portfolio manager at Millennium Management. He was previously an energy specialist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and an adviser to multi-billion-dollar hedge funds. Barclay joins a growing cohort of money managers departing marquee hedge funds to start their own firms. Saber Capital was launched earlier this year and trading began in late May, the people said, adding that Barclay is currently the only risk taker.  The firm, which also has an office in Zurich, is raising capital in separately managed accounts and working with another investor to launch a

Dive Brief: Data centers with the capability to shift workloads to different times can avoid stressing the electric grid and save consumers money — but the shifts may increase power plant emissions in some markets, according to new research from the MIT Future Energy Systems Center.  Data center load shifting can facilitate both renewable energy integration and improvements in the utilization of existing baseload capacity, researchers concluded. “As a result, the emissions impact depends on which effect dominates,” they wrote. “Our findings highlight the importance of aligning data center flexibility with renewable deployment and regional conditions.” Projections of data center electricity demand growth have utilities and grid operators looking for resources and demand management strategies to accommodate the new loads. AI data centers could consume 34 GW, or about 3% of the United States’ generating capacity by 2030, Schneider Electric said earlier this year. Other predictions for data center growth are much higher. Dive Insight: Experts say not all proposed data centers will be built, meaning estimates for future power demand are uncertain. But they also agree that significant demand growth is in the wings, and flexible load profiles can ease potential grid stress.  A 2024 RAND Corporation forecast sees 130 GW of data center demand in the United States by 2030. The U.S. Department of Energy this month estimated an additional 100 GW of new peak capacity is needed by 2030 for data centers. “Data centers are among the fastest-growing electricity consumers,” Christopher Knittel, MIT’s associate dean for climate and sustainability, said in a statement. “Our report underscores the urgency of rethinking grid management and [of] operating data centers more flexibly – especially when it comes to AI training.” Data centers do not operate consistently at full capacity and typically maintain utilization rates around 80%, according to the paper, “Flexible Data Centers

Arjun Krishnaswami is a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. A new obsession with abundance is spreading through policy conversations and governors’ mansions across the country. Abundance advocates, boosted by a recent book from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, envision a future in which we defeat the climate crisis, reduce cost of living and improve quality of life by speeding up construction of housing and energy infrastructure. Making clean energy abundant is certainly critical to addressing the climate crisis. We need plentiful, cheap, clean energy to replace polluting fossil fuels in buildings, vehicles and factories. As a senior policy advisor in the Biden White House, I worked on many policies aimed at clean energy abundance, directly or indirectly, and I also saw firsthand how those policies were insufficient. That’s why it is now clear to me that the abundance movement’s playbook — to streamline permitting, simplify government processes and make public investments more focused — falls short of what’s needed. We won’t achieve energy abundance unless we contend with the powerful interests that benefit from scarcity. Doing so requires reforming electricity markets, refreshing regulation of electric companies and rethinking the way we pay for grid infrastructure. Let’s start with the problem: we are not building nearly enough clean energy to curb climate change and keep electricity affordable. Analysis from three leading research projects found that for us to get within striking distance of the Paris climate goals and plan for the lowest electricity costs, we must build 70 GW to 125 GW of clean energy per year, much higher than the record 50 GW built in 2024. As a result of our failure to build new energy projects fast, families and businesses will pay more for power and the planet will warm faster. This is no longer an

Dive Brief: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to revoke its “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gas emissions, which underpins regulations that aim to cut those emissions from the power, auto, and oil and gas sectors, the EPA said Tuesday. The EPA’s effort to rescind its finding that GHG emissions threaten public health will face “significant legal pushback that could derail implementation,” research firm Capstone said Tuesday. “Previous challenges to the finding have been unsuccessful, and greenhouse gases were codified as a pollutant under the [Clean Air Act] in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Capstone analysts said. The EPA’s proposal ignores established climate science, according to David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project. “This baseless effort to pretend that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that cause climate change are not harmful pollutants is nothing more than a transparent attempt to delay and derail our efforts to control greenhouse [gas] pollution at the worst possible time, when deadly floods and heat waves are killing more people every day,” Bookbinder said in a statement. Dive Insight: After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA could regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act, the Obama and Biden administrations used the 2009 endangerment finding to limit greenhouse emissions from power plants under rules that never took effect. The endangerment finding was upheld by a federal appeals court in 2012 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that decision. The EPA is proposing to rescind the endangerment finding and all resulting GHG emission standards for new motor vehicles and engines for model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond, according to a proposed rule released by the EPA that has not yet appeared in the Federal Register. The proposal has no immediate impact on regulatory enforcement and the

NOMAC Maintenance Energy Services (NMES), part of ACWA Power Company, has signed an agreement with Ethos Energy Group Limited (EthosEnergy) to offer an on-site Rotor Lifetime Assessment and Extension (RLE) solution for GE Frame 7E, EA, and FA gas turbines in Saudi Arabia. This partnership represents a major advancement in delivering comprehensive on-site rotating equipment services with exceptional speed and efficiency throughout the region and beyond, EthosEnergy said in a media release. EthosEnergy said it has expertise with mature Westinghouse gas turbines and that it is a reliable alternative OEM source for rotor, hot gas path (HGP), and compressor parts across various technologies, from GE Frame 3 to Frame 9. The company added that it has experience in designing, manufacturing, and installing Frame 7 rotors and related components. NMES, the internal long-term service division of ACWA Power, serves as a global partner for independent power producers (IPPs) and governmental utilities. NMES specializes in providing advanced workshop-level services directly at the site, offering a range of services such as rotor unstacking and restacking, laser welding and precision machining, on-site balancing and inspection, as well as essential NDT and on-site component replacement, an arrangement that mitigates the risks and delays associated with overseas transport, customs clearance, shipping, and related expenses, EthosEnergy noted. “We’re thrilled to partner with EthosEnergy, enabling us to deliver not only the expertise and machinery to perform these works on-site, but also the required parts, providing a comprehensive solution in the shortest timeframe, and at the most competitive price”, Harald Schmit, EVP of Field Services at ACWA Power and Head of NMES, said. Through this collaboration, EthosEnergy said it will offer a fully integrated RLE solution with NMES. The solution includes the supply of seed rotors, whether new or certified refurbished, alongside full on-site rotor lifetime assessment and extension