Battery storage business models explored for AI data centres with Nordic reserve market revenues and US household computing power

This week (6 July), powered land and data centre infrastructure developer VivoPower said that it could make up to US$4 million in EBITDA by playing a BESS asset at a so-called “AI-ready” data centre campus in Norway, into Nordic reserve power markets.

Then yesterday, US third-party solar PV and battery leasing company Sunrun announced a pilot project to put distributed AI computing power into customers’ homes.

VivoPower and Sunrun are exploring business models that the companies hope will have the potential for wider adoption as data centre power demand becomes as powerful a driver of battery storage adoption as fossil fuel replacement with renewable energy.

VivoPower sees Nordic ancillary services as a profitable revenue add-on

VivoPower is progressing with a technical and commercial feasibility study to integrate a BESS at the company’s 41.5MW data centre in northern Norway, Europe. The data centre in the city of Mo I Rana is already operational and is powered by hydroelectric renewable generation. It does not yet have a tenant, although VivoPower said at the end of June that it had selected a “global AI industry leader” as its preferred tenant from a shortlist.