The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) in Applewood, Colorado, has unveiled a new test bed designed to enable data centers to become active participants in improving grid reliability.

Dubbed Agora, the large-load test bed is funded by the US DOE’s Office of Electricity and industry partners, who played a key role in its design. According to the DOE, it is the only dedicated large-load grid integration test bed across the US National Laboratory Complex.

“We built a 20th-century grid - but today we serve a 21st‑century, data‑driven, AI‑enabled economy,” said Katie Jereza, assistant secretary of DOE’s Office of Electricity. “Through innovative test beds, we are not just experimenting, we are creating confidence in a powerful new capability - one that delivers affordable, reliable, and secure power that our homes, businesses, and overall economy need.”

The test bed seeks to help data centers adopt flexible designs and cost-saving operational practices to support the grid during periods when demand is at risk of exceeding supply. The test bed will therefore convene utilities, data center developers, technology providers, and researchers across the US to develop best practices to improve grid flexibility. Industry partners set to take part in the initiative include Schneider Electric, Compass Datacenters, and Verrus.

“Very few facilities in the country can study both the grid and interactions with large loads under real-world conditions and at this level of detail,” said Martha Symko-Davies, laboratory program manager for the Office of Electricity at NLR. “That integrated detail is essential as energy demand is growing exponentially and data centers need to establish themselves as good grid citizens - energy users that share responsibility for keeping the grid reliable.”

The lab said it will continue to partner with more utilities and data centers to adapt Agora’s capabilities and meet evolving industry needs.

The test bed reflects a growing trend of companies and data center firms seeking to deploy flexible initiatives within their facilities. One of the most notable firms in this space is Emerald AI. The Nvidia-backed firm has created an AI-powered platform, dubbed the Emerald Conductor, which serves as a mediator between the grid and data centers, orchestrating AI workloads in real time.

This enables data centers to dynamically adjust their energy consumption, supporting grid stability while ensuring acceptable AI compute performance. The company has so far completed three demonstration projects in Phoenix, Chicago, and the UK. It recently announced its latest pilot project with California municipal utility Silicon Valley Power (SVP) in Santa Clara, California.