IEEE Spectrum

New York isn’t particularly inundated with new data centers, but it just became the first U.S. state to ban them. In an executive order on 14 July, Governor Kathy Hochul imposed a moratorium of up to a year on data centers that consume 50 megawatts of power or more. The ban arose from concerns about data centers’ power and water use and effects on residential electricity bills. Such worries have …

The stroke of a pen in Utah set off a solar chain reaction across the United States. Last March, the Western state legalized plug-in photovoltaic: solar panels small enough they can plug into a typical household outlet, helping power the house. Dozens of states followed suit shortly thereafter. Balcony solar, as the tech has become known since it could be deployed on the balcony of an apartment b…

Data center developers and hyperscalers are experimenting with 800 volt direct current (800 VDC) inside their largest data centers. It enables them to pack more compute power in much smaller spaces to run the latest AI applications; 800 VDC also reduces waste heat from electric wires, lowers cable weight, and eliminates equipment needed in multiple AC to DC to AC conversions. The Large Load Worki…

On the nights after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico’s power grid in 2017, former Puerto Rican energy regulator Javier Rúa-Jovet remembers watching the sky warp along the horizon as thousands of fossil fuel-powered generators spewed emissions into the atmosphere. The “whole society” was running on this carbon-intensive backup power at the time, says Rúa-Jovet. Now, nearly a decade later, at le…

Spent batteries from older electric vehicles are starting to pile up, but a handful of companies are repurposing them in a novel way: as energy storage for the grid. These batteries are retired from EVs after their capacity falls to 70 to 80 percent; that’s too low to satisfy drivers, but leaves enough juice for many stationary-storage applications. With some clever engineering, hundreds of retir…

This article is brought to you by Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) supported by Business Events Australia . As artificial intelligence accelerates global demand for compute, a parallel constraint is emerging with equal urgency: energy. From hyperscale data centers to electrified industries, AI is driving a step change in electricity demand. This is not a future challenge, it is a present, system…

Off-grid coastal communities that rely on weather-dependent solar and expensive diesel to meet their energy needs may soon have a new addition to their power production portfolio: tidal energy. Researchers from SRI International, a research institute in Menlo Park, Calif., are testing a buoyant kite that flies underwater to determine whether it can squeeze enough power from intermittent, often sl…

Next month, when summer heat and winter cold near their peak in each of Earth’s hemispheres, grid operators will face their highest electricity demands of the year. Space heating and cooling make up about 50 percent of all energy end uses worldwide, putting enormous strain on grids and sometimes forcing utilities to use more expensive, polluting plants. But it doesn’t have to be that way. To take…

The United States’ top energy regulator has ordered grid operators to either overhaul how they connect data centers to the grid, or justify their current strategy. The highly anticipated set of directives , issued 18 June by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) targets six regional transmission grid operators that together supply a majority of national electricity demand. FERC’s m…

By most accounts, the United States appears poised to fall woefully short of meeting new electricity demand over the next five years as data centers and domestic manufacturing proliferate. Ian Magruder Ian Magruder is the founder of Utilize Coalition and previously served as director of market mobilization at Rewiring America, an affordable electrification advocacy group. Building new power plant…

Nuclear fusion reactors offer the hope of vast, clean energy from the same process that powers stars. But despite decades of research, a fusion reactor that can supply practical amounts of power has proven elusive. Now startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems has revealed in depth what it says is the most complex aspect of the reactor it is constructing—the way the reactor controls the plasma responsi…

This sponsored article is brought to you by Black & Veatch . The biggest challenge facing utilities today isn’t what it seems. It’s not demand, even as load growth accelerates. It’s not extreme weather, even as “major events” become routine. It’s not cybersecurity, even as connections expand across the grid. The real challenge is this: Distribution systems were designed for a different reality. L…

“Not in my backyard” is the rallying cry of citizens everywhere resisting projects proposed for their locality. Whether it’s affordable housing, a waste treatment plant, or a new data center, they may recognize the benefit of the activity. They just don’t want it near them. And the roots of that resistance differ from place to place. When it comes to the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to re…

The electric vehicle (EV) market in Europe is flourishing, to the point where, in late 2025, nearly 100 percent of new registrations in Norway were EVs . But large electric freight trucks, called electric heavy-goods vehicles (eHGVs), are still as rare as hen’s teeth. Researchers and innovators on the continent are seeking to change this picture, and fast. Chugging around the European Union are a…

The rise of electricity-guzzling data centers has forced the artificial intelligence industry to get creative about finding power. One of the latest ideas: Build micro data centers next to utility substations and operate them in concert, shifting the computation around based on power availability. That’s the approach Nvidia and its collaborators are taking in a new pilot project they plan to buil…

“Why are you here?” Fabrizio Pilo, an electrical engineer, asks me as we sit in an outdoor café near his home in Cagliari, an ancient city on the island of Sardinia. It’s a fair question. I’m a journalist from the United States. I’d just stepped off my flight 2 hours prior and come straight to this meeting, suitcase still stowed in my rental car. I’m here to see three intriguing new energy projec…

Laboratory or in-field measurements are often considered the gold standard for certain aspects of power system design; however, measurement approaches always have limitations. Simulation can help overcome some of these limitations, including speeding up the design process, reducing design costs, and assessing situations that are often not feasible to measure directly. In this presentation, we wil…

As more AI data centers come on line, concerns are rising about their effects on the grid, and it’s not just the amount of power they consume. They tend to have huge swings in power use, surging up and down by 70 percent or more in milliseconds. Traditional electricity infrastructure isn’t designed to deal with that kind of load fluctuation. To address the problem, researchers are developing powe…

All over the world, researchers are working on an urgent and surprisingly difficult challenge: creating a cost-effective yet powerful permanent magnet that doesn’t use rare earth elements . Rare earth magnets are essential components of the motors for electric vehicles, heating and cooling systems, robots, tools, and appliances, and they’re also essential for wind turbines, audio speakers, and ot…

This webinar covers power system modeling and simulation across multiple timescales, from quasi-static 8760 analysis through EMT studies, fault classification, and inverter-based resource grid integration. What Attendees will Learn Programmatic network construction and multi-fidelity modeling — Learn how to build power system networks programmatically from standard data formats, configure models …