The race to build data center projects has made 'speed to power' a top priority. Announced data center capacity has reached a gigantic 674 gigawatts (GW) worldwide. That’s around 30 percent more than the capacity of India’s entire power grid in 2025.

While grid-connected power remains the preferred option for data center developers, offering low cost and reliability, long and unpredictable connection timelines are spurring three speed-to-power solutions: virtual power plants (VPPs), grid enhancing technologies (GETs) and around-the-meter (ATM) projects.

High-voltage transmission: Facing major challenges

New high-voltage (HV) transmission would be the traditional response to large-scale electricity demand growth. And there are a wide range of expansion plans in growing data center markets around the world. But these projects are subject to a range of execution risks driven by permitting delays that could slow down the expansion of HV infrastructure.

In the face of these challenges, three key alternative pathways are available that together could unlock speed to power: virtual power plants (VPPs); grid enhancing technologies (GETs); and around-the-meter (ATM) projects.

Virtual power plants: More power from the existing grid

Deliverable within just six to 18 months for existing VPP programs, they work by combining multiple behind-the-meter distributed energy resources – home batteries, smart thermostats, paired solar-plus-storage – into a single dispatchable resource for a specific utility territory.

When the grid is tight, VPPs manage these resources, telling loads to reduce consumption, discharging batteries or dispatching generation to the grid, allowing more customers to connect before new grid capacity is built. Grid operators and utilities pay VPP participants for standby availability, emergency response, and minute-to-minute balancing.

Data center energy buyers are developing VPP project pipelines. For example, hyperscalers across PJM (Virginia), CAISO and ERCOT are pursuing a 16 GW VPP initiative using home batteries and over 8 million smart thermostats to create power supply headroom within “data center alley”.

Outside of the US, power markets in Japan and Australia are also considering VPP programs. But, VPP deployment faces real barriers: the speed and ambition of utilities, access to quality data, program costs, and the need to update regulations all constrain how fast VPPs can scale.

Grid enhancing technologies: Optimizing the existing grid

GETs can unlock five to 50 percent more capacity from existing transmission infrastructure within timescales of weeks to 18 months, making them one of the most time-efficient power pathways available.

The four main GET technologies fall into hardware and software categories. Dynamic line rating and static line uprating use real-time monitoring and physical coatings respectively to increase line capacity by ten to 50 percent within weeks to months. Topology optimization reroutes power flows using software to cut congestion and curtailment for a five to 25 percent average capacity gain, while advanced power flow control devices change line reactance in real time for a 20 to 50 percent gain, deliverable within six to 18 months.

Power markets where GETs are already deployed include the US, the UK and Belgium, but scaling them globally will require action across six policy areas. These include compliance mandates, grid code reform, cross-border market harmonisation, voltage network services, data transparency and targeted funding.

On funding, the US is making strong strides to invest in GETs. In March 2026, the Department of Energy's SPARK programme announced US$1.9 billion for advanced transmission technologies including dynamic line ratings, advanced reconductoring and transmission coordination – with funding awards expected between October 2026 and January 2027.

Around-the-meter projects: Bypassing the grid

By siting gas generation, renewables and battery storage either fully or partially off-grid, ATM projects can deliver power supply within 24 to 48 months for projects with all power supply equipment secured and voltage ride-through compliance in place.

However, ATM's speed advantage is contingent on supply chain readiness. New voltage ride-through requirements emerging from regulatory reviews, such as those seen in ERCOT, could force redesigns of 'in-flight' ATM projects, exposing developers to three-year wait times for transformers and circuit breakers.

Early-stage projects that have yet to place equipment orders face the same three-year delay, rising to six years for gas-focused ATM projects without a confirmed gas turbine reservation slot. Achieving the reliability required to protect sensitive computing loads and avoid destabilizing the grid is also technically demanding, requiring a carefully coordinated suite of power supply equipment to eliminate damaging low- and high-frequency alternating currents across a range of timescales from milliseconds to steady-state operation.

In conclusion: Speed to power as a defining challenge

The race to build data center capacity has made speed to power one of the most pressing challenges – and opportunities – in the energy and power sectors.

VPPs, GETs and ATM projects each offer faster pathways, but ATM projects face the strongest headwind: record supply chain wait times mean that only projects with all equipment already secured and voltage ride-through compliance confirmed can realistically achieve 24 to 48 month delivery.

Underpinning all three pathways is a broader challenge for the electrical equipment manufacturing sector. Even with US$4.1 billion in announced new US manufacturing investment through 2029, wait times of up to three years are unlikely to ease materially. The sector needs stronger and more sustained confidence in AI-driven data center demand before it will commit to the capacity expansion needed to bring those timelines down.