Ember: on-site generation beats data centre load shifting for grid relief

The numbers are lopsided. Load shifting could shave about 100 MW off Ireland's projected 2030 peak, roughly 1.5%, pv magazine reports. Behind-the-meter generation and storage, which Ember calls bring-your-own-capacity, could deliver close to five times that relief. Potential reductions reach up to 2.7 GW in Texas.

The study covers nine markets across the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. Ireland, the UK and Germany are singled out as the most exposed. Ember's reasoning is simple: most of what runs in a data centre cannot be moved. The analysis treats that immobility as the starting point rather than an afterthought. Cloud services, enterprise workloads and AI inference need low latency. They will account for about 87% of global data centre capacity by 2030, the analysis estimates. Training runs are more flexible. Ember assumes 35% of training capacity can be shifted, 5% of inference and none of traditional data centre load. That leaves roughly 6.5% of global capacity theoretically movable. It falls to about 3% once an average utilisation rate of around 48% is applied.

Why the queue matters

The timing mismatch is the harder problem. A large data centre needs 200 MW to 500 MW of capacity, according to pv magazine's write-up of the study. It can be built in 18 to 24 months. Conventional grid expansion takes four to 10 years.

Ireland shows what that looks like in practice. Data centres already account for about 19% of peak demand. In January 2025, when system demand peaked at 6 GW, they drew an estimated 1.1 GW. Ember projects the share rising to 24% by 2030, with data centre demand at 1.6 GW against a 6.5 GW system peak. That gap is now shaping physical infrastructure decisions. The Guardian reported on 1 November that National Grid had agreed to buy 29.5 hectares (73 acres) at Dorman Point on Teesside. The land is owned by the Teesworks public-private partnership. The site would host what would be Britain's biggest substation.

Having up to 3.2GW of capacity here means we can finally compete for those projects, Ben Houchen, mayor of the Tees Valley combined authority, told Sky News, in comments relayed by the Guardian.

Matt Pearce, National Grid's head of land, said the deal reflected "the constructive work between all those involved to enable this vital infrastructure", the Guardian reported. The site sits next to a planned AI data centre spanning nearly 500,000 sq metres. The Guardian notes that Balfour Beatty was reported to be in line to deliver the substation, with Steel River Power heavily involved.

Solar is already moving prices

Behind-the-meter capacity is not only a data centre story. In Spain, the PV association UNEF estimates that solar generation cut wholesale electricity costs by €17.02 billion between January 2025 and June 2026, pv magazine reported on 3 November.

UNEF compares actual day-ahead prices with a modelled scenario without utility-scale PV and self-consumption. Without solar, the average price would have been €112/MWh rather than the recorded €60.2/MWh, a 46% reduction. Average daily prices would have been 86% higher. Utility-scale plants accounted for €14.23 billion of the savings and self-consumption €2.79 billion. That splits as €10.86 billion in 2025 and €6.16 billion in the first half of 2026. UNEF also estimates that every euro invested in solar PV produces €8 in wholesale price savings.

The association is careful about the limits. The analysis covers the day-ahead market only, excluding technical constraints, balancing services and forward contracts. It therefore does not translate directly into household bill savings. UNEF also concedes that gas and hydro plants might respond differently in a market without solar.

Policy is moving the other way in the US. CleanTechnica reported on 2 November that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's $36.8 billion in advance appropriations expired on 30 September 2026. A short-term extension running to 11 December does not include the guaranteed dollars. The House BUILD America 250 Act proposal, released in May, would cut all advanced appropriations. It would also reduce transport funding by almost 50% against current levels, according to the same piece.

For grid planners, the Ember finding cuts against the usual flexibility pitch. Asking data centres to pause workloads is cheap and needs no hardware. On Ember's numbers, it also delivers a fraction of what on-site generation and batteries can do. That puts the investment question back where it started: who pays for the capacity, and how quickly it can be connected.