UK steel supplier Steel Nation has launched “Steel Nation Microgrids,” a new division that will facilitate partnerships between natural gas suppliers and data center facilities to power reciprocating generator sets and larger turbine engines.

The new division will provide uninterrupted power from shale gas producers to data center operators, ranging from smaller colocated 20MW microgrid data centers to large scale hyperscale data centers.

“We look at our nearly 17 years of success in the natural gas industry, and we are excited to apply the principles, design, and construction knowledge to Steel Nation Microgrids,” stated Mark Caskey, CEO of Steel Nation.

The division will provide a full suite of solutions to data center operators, including pipeline design and construction of mainline transmission, the design and construction of interconnects, the design and permitting of sites, the design of high-density power plants to exceed electrical usage projections, and the turnkey construction of large buildings hosting multiple engines.

The data center sector is increasingly seeking microgrid solutions to meet its rising energy demand.

Last December, microgrid provider Enchanted Rock announced it would purchase renewable natural gas from food waste to help power a microgrid that provides resilience at a Microsoft data center in San Jose.

Bloom Energy, another microgrid provider, has signed several deals with data center developers. In October it sold three fuel cell microgrid systems to server manufacturer Quanta.

Before this, in July, it inked a 15-year 20MW offtake agreement to supply AWS with fuel cells for a planned data center in Silicon Valley.

However, controversy over gas-powered microgrids has led to several high-profile cancellations. Most notably, in June, AWS canceled plans to use Bloom Energy gas-powered fuel cells at a data center in Oregon.