Data centres: Improving energy efficiency for on-site gas turbines

Rising energy costs, stricter sustainability targets, and zero tolerance for downtime are challenging traditional power strategies for data centres.

Continuous reliance on gas turbine spinning reserve can provide resilience – but it comes at the expense of high fuel consumption, increased maintenance, and unnecessary carbon emissions – often while operating well below optimal efficiency.

This white paper demonstrates how:

• Integrating a battery energy storage system (BESS) with on-site gas turbines enables data centres to eliminate spinning reserve – without compromising availability.
• BESS delivers instant power response in milliseconds, seamlessly bridging load changes or generator trips, enabling turbines to operate for fewer hours and at higher efficiency points.
• Real-world modelling shows measurable benefits, including reduced operating and maintenance costs, extended asset life, rapid payback, and meaningful emissions reduction.

For data centre operators seeking to improve resilience, lower operating costs, and accelerate progress toward net-zero goals, a hybrid architecture that integrates gas turbines with BESS offers proven, future-ready power capabilities.