Trump administration taps data centres for backup power ahead of snowstorm

Electricity providers were told they should tap into available backup power used by manufacturing facilities, retail businesses and data centers, if power demand in their regions nears a level that could potentially lead to a blackout, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep the lights on and to keep power prices down" during the storm, Wright said. He said the Energy Department has been working on the program for several months and it could also be implemented during peak demand periods in the summer.

The energy secretary sent energy reliability coordinators and balancing authorities a letter Thursday telling them that the DOE would make backup power available to address what he calls a “national energy emergency." The measures are taken under a law giving the energy secretary power to take control of electricity generating facilities to meet demand in emergency situations.

The move is unusual because data-center operators and businesses generally don’t distribute energy onto the grid. The DOE under Wright has been examining ways it can give data centers the ability to build their own power generation, which he has said could help lower electricity prices. It wasn’t immediately clear how the plans would work on short notice or if they would face technical hurdles.

The emergency move marks the administration’s latest attempt to address energy challenges posed by AI and data centers. Under pressure to address the high cost of living, President Trump recently praised Microsoft for promising to pay its own way to power its data centers. Wright and other officials then worked with a bipartisan group of governors to call on the nation’s largest grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to make tech companies cover the higher costs of the facilities.

Cold weather and snow are expected to batter much of the country over the weekend, threatening energy infrastructure and snarling travel patterns. The frigid forecasts have pushed up natural-gas prices in recent days.

If energy demand is higher than expected and weather conditions are more extreme than normal, many parts of the country are likely to experience power outages, Jefferies analysts said in a note. Rising data-center power consumption is one of the conditions contributing to a risky backdrop, they said.

Wright’s efforts are aimed at averting the need for rolling blackouts, a last-resort means of keeping electricity supply and demand in balance during times of strain on the grid. The use of backup power wouldn’t address outages that occur as a result of weather-related damage to the system

Wright recently instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is known as FERC and oversees wholesale power in the U.S., to draft new rules that would give it oversight of how giant data centers connect to the power grid, a process typically overseen by states.

Many data centers and manufacturing plants have tens of industrial diesel generators on hand in case power goes out and they need to generate their own electricity. The administration’s idea is to take advantage of that power capacity during demand spikes.

Wright first publicly referenced the potential of industrial diesel generators to help meet surging power demand and combat rising utility costs at a conference last month, hoping to address a primary concern of many consumers. He said the generators could generate 35 gigawatts of power, or enough electricity to power many millions of homes.

Heavy use of electricity from diesel generators could raise concerns about the carbon emissions associated with that power in certain states or run afoul of Environmental Protection Agency rules. Wright and other officials have dismissed similar concerns in the past and blamed environmental rules for driving energy shortages.

Write to Amrith Ramkumar at amrith.ramkumar@wsj.com and Scott Patterson at scott.patterson@wsj.com