Data Centers Are Batteries the Grid Hasn't Learned to Use Yet

Every data center runs on batteries – banks of them, mostly idle, waiting for the rare moment backup power is needed. That stored capacity could help steady the grid, if operators and utilities learn to tap it. SDEA takes that argument to Solar & Storage Live Zürich, September 16-17, 2026 at Messe Zürich.

Data centers are usually cast as a problem for the grid. Demand is climbing fast, driven by AI, and each new facility adds load that operators have to plan around. That framing isn't wrong, but it's incomplete – and it's the thread running through the panel Executive Director Matthias Haymoz joins in Zürich, where SDEA is an official partner.

The Panel

Data Centers as a Pillar of the Grid: Strategies for Flexibility, Backup Storage, and Grid Stability in Switzerland

• Matthias Haymoz, Executive Director, SDEA

• Nicolas Schmid, Associate Partner, Infras

Additional panelists to be announced.

The same properties that make data centers demanding also make them useful. They consume a lot of power, they're highly instrumented, and they already run large banks of batteries for backup. A facility that can measure and control its own energy use with precision is, in principle, a flexible resource the grid can lean on – not only a load it has to absorb.

What Solar and Storage Can Do Inside a Data Center

Two shifts are worth watching.

• The first is on-site generation and behind-the-meter storage. Pairing solar with batteries on or near a site lets operators offset grid draw directly, sidestep some network charges, and smooth the sharp power spikes that modern compute loads create. It's a growing pattern in markets where grid connections are slow or constrained.

• The second is turning existing backup infrastructure into a grid asset. Data centers hold significant battery capacity for uninterruptible power. Increasingly, that capacity can do double duty – providing fast-response services like frequency regulation and reserve, absorbing surplus renewable output when it's abundant, and feeding it back when it's scarce. Backup that mostly sits idle becomes something the wider system can use.

Neither is automatic. Both depend on how a facility is designed, operated, and measured. Which is where SDEA's work starts.

SDEA's Angle: Measured, Not Guessed

SDEA certifies data center sustainability on operational evidence – 12 months of real data and independent third-party audits, rather than design estimates or self-reported figures. Its framework already tracks on-premise renewables and the carbon footprint of the energy a facility uses.

Flexibility and grid support fit the same logic. Claims about a data center's contribution to grid stability only mean something if they can be measured and verified. That's the point Haymoz brings to the panel: the potential is real, but it has to be proven, site by site, with data.

Solar & Storage Live Zurich

Switzerland's largest solar and energy storage exhibition, covering residential, commercial and industrial, and utility-scale projects.

• Dates: September 16-17, 2026

• Venue: Messe Zürich

• Scale: around 3,500 attendees, 130 exhibitors, 120 speakers

The event brings together installers, distributors, project developers, utilities, grid operators, and policymakers to advance Switzerland's energy transition.

More information and registration: Solar & Storage Live Zürich 2026