Battery management systems are essential for deploying batteries in data centers – SPE

Powering data centers with renewable energy and storage presents a range of technical and economic challenges that independent power producers, EPC contractors and investors have only recently begun to address. In this context, large-scale batteries are expected to play a key role, providing the active energy needed during peak demand and coordinating energy flows between generation, storage and data center loads.

Yet it remains unclear whether current battery technologies can perform these tasks efficiently, casting doubt on the solar-plus-storage industry’s ability to meet growing data center electricity demands in the near term.

To investigate this, an international research team investigated how batteries can effectively support data center power and found that the development of advanced battery management systems will be crucial. “Energy storage, battery technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) integration and thermal regulation can be considered as the four main sectors that require more research and research to have reliable data centers, with the lowest costs and the highest revenues,” the group said.

In the newspaper “A research industry perspective of battery system technology for next-generation data centers”, published in the Journal of Energy Storagethe researchers noted that most existing reviews focus on demand response, load modeling, energy management systems, air flow control, resource allocation, and energy efficient architecture, but rarely address batteries or their integration with standards, industry white papers, funded projects, and practical applications.

“It is not immediately feasible everywhere to fully power data centers with renewable energy sources and storage,” says the study’s corresponding author, Ashkan Safari. pv magazine. “Renewable sources, such as solar and wind, are intermittent, and the amount of energy storage required to ensure 24/7 reliable operation remains very large and expensive. Economically, the upfront cost of large-scale renewables and long-term storage is often higher than that of using the grid, especially when grid electricity is cheap. That’s why most data centers today rely on a hybrid approach: renewables and storage backed by the grid.”

“As renewable generation becomes cheaper, storage technologies mature, and networks become cleaner and more flexible, most types of data centers can be powered primarily by renewable energy sources,” he continued. “However, differences in location, size, reliability requirements and critical workloads mean that some data centers, such as large-scale ones, will embrace this more quickly than smaller ones.”

According to Safari, the feasibility of powering data centers with renewable energy and storage largely depends on the characteristics of the network. Networks with high renewable energy penetration, strong transmission capacity, low congestion and fast balancing services can effectively manage renewable energy variability, reducing the need for on-site generation and storage and lowering data center costs. In contrast, limited network capabilities are forcing data centers to oversize on-site renewables and storage, making fully renewable operation technically more challenging and expensive.

The study fills this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of battery technologies, their components and control methodologies, while linking them to broader energy efficiency strategies in data centers. This holistic approach includes both batteries for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in data centers and battery energy storage systems (BESSs) deployed outside the facilities.

The researchers reviewed all battery technology systems for data centers, outlined power architectures and recommended topologies, examined batteries and battery management systems (BMSs) integrated with AI control strategies, summarized net-zero initiatives and industry standards, and analyzed recent industry whitepapers, proofs-of-concept, and funded projects. Detailing the UPS topologies and the types of BESS used, they emphasized that advanced BMS technologies will be essential for reliable, efficient and sustainable data center operations.

“BMS technology is critical for ensuring the safety, remaining useful life (RUL) and efficiency of lithium-ion batteries by monitoring parameters such as temperature, voltage, current and battery status,” the team explains. “It prevents overcharging, overheating and deep discharge, and enables strategies such as cell balancing, thermal management and predictive maintenance that optimize battery performance.”

The academics explained that building management systems in modern data centers continuously monitor key states, including state of charge (SoC), state of health (SoH), state of energy (SoE), and state of temperature (SoT). Cell monitoring collects voltage, temperature and current data from individual cells, allowing real-time adjustments to optimize performance and extend battery life.

The hierarchical BMS architecture consists of three layers – data, calculation and application – allowing the integration of measurement, modeling and real-time control. The compute layer estimates internal battery status, while the application layer manages security, aging, thermal control, balancing and fault diagnosis. SoC and SoH estimations use conventional, AI, observer-based, adaptive filtering, and hybrid methods, often integrated into multi-state estimation frameworks that predict RUL and performance at real-time, medium, and long-term scales.

Moreover, the team highlighted that advanced AI-based models such as neural networks, neuro-fuzzy systems, reinforcement learning, BiLSTM, LSTM, random forests and generative adversarial networks (GANs) further improve state estimation, error detection and predictive control. Enablement features support these AI models by effectively mapping inputs, enabling accurate SoC and SoH predictions and optimizing BMS performance for high-performance data centers.

The researchers concluded that AI-powered building management systems will be able to provide real-time monitoring, predictive control and optimized energy management, laying the foundation for intelligent, reliable and sustainable battery operation in data centers.

“The integration of AI into BMS improves condition estimates, reduces failures and extends RUL,” they stated. “However, challenges remain in scaling AI-driven solutions, achieving net-zero data centers and meeting various industry-specific requirements.”