Eaton and Siemens Energy Announce Fast-Track Data Center Construction with Onsite Power

Eaton and Siemens Energy have announced a new approach to building data centers. Their collaboration aims to accelerate data center construction and deployment by integrating onsite power solutions, addressing the urgent market demand for reliable, grid-independent energy supplies and standardized modular systems.

This partnership will allow for the simultaneous construction of data centers and their associated onsite power generation, including grid connections and the integration of renewable energy sources where required by regional regulations. This gives data center owners and developers new options for building and operating facilities.

Siemens Energy’s modular power plant concept is designed for data center operators, with a standard configuration providing 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity. These plants feature efficient SGT-800 gas turbines, redundancy, and battery storage systems for high reliability. The modular design allows for flexible scaling of plant size. In the future, these plants can also operate without carbon emissions if hydrogen becomes available and is part of the data center’s sustainability plan. Siemens Energy’s concept also includes an optional clean air grid connection for data centers to provide grid services, which can be installed during initial construction or as a retrofit.

Cyrille Brisson, global segment leader, Data Centers, Eaton, said, “Our approach of letting customers pick the right balance of energy sources is very flexible and construction to start-up time is swift with options to reduce emissions in both the short and long term. Crucially, our approach offers data center owners and developers the opportunity to build capacity and bring it online fast in any location where they have land available that is close to gas, water and fiber.”

Eaton will supply electrical equipment including medium- and low-voltage switchgear, UPS systems, busways, structural support, racks, and containment systems. They will also provide engineering services and software to protect and enable IT loads from the medium-voltage grid to the chip. Eaton’s contribution aims to speed up data center construction and commissioning through skidded and modular designs.

Andreas Pistauer, global head of sales, Siemens Energy’s Gas Services Business Area, said, “We offer hyperscalers, co-locators and investors a unique package, enabling them to reduce the time-to-market by up to two years in many places which leads to significant revenue gains. Our power plant design is built with redundancy, eliminating the need for backup diesel generators, and reducing CO2 emissions by about 50 percent.”