Power is one of the defining constraints on data center and AI growth, which has inevitably resulted in a significant gap in grid infrastructure worldwide. When you look at demand versus grid infrastructure, however, these are two areas that are growing further apart.

As far as Ben Pritchard, CEO at AVK-SEG (AVK), is concerned, without improved power considerations, plenty of demand just won’t get built. He speaks with DCD about the importance of looking at power as a real strategic asset.

“If you have it, it’s great, you’re probably going to sign a lease. If you don’t have it, you need to think differently to actually enable your cycle,” he explains.

Looking beyond the buzzword

As the industry looks to solve power shortages, behind-the-meter (BTM) solutions have become somewhat of a buzzword. BTM power involves a data center generating its own electricity on-site or close to the facility to avoid using utility grids. However, it is perhaps assumed that to engage with BTM is an easy task.

Having delivered and run one since 2024, and currently working on another, Pritchard said BTM is probably the hardest thing AVK has ever done.

“There’s no blueprint. We are educating ourselves and solving problems as we go,” he says. “You need to understand what BTM actually means – it’s actually quite complex when you start to think about what the power demand of a data center is, and how you need to design this microgrid to deliver what’s needed for the data center.”

To deliver industry-leading solutions in this area, AVK has developed its own Energy as a Service (EaaS) strategy, which will be game-changing. The company is building on a foundation that has delivered microgrids and pods to step across the full value chain of power. Then, with EaaS, it can take some of the thinking away from developers and tenants to accelerate their work.

“We can give them speed to power, which is crucial,” Pritchard explains. “Some of them won’t get a grid connection for 10 years, but we can build a microgrid in two years.”

He adds: “They also don’t have a massive financial burden. Because microgrids are expensive, they perhaps don’t want to deploy that capital. Now, they can see it over a 10-year term, or however long their lease is.”

Ultimately, the goal is for data center developers to get the technical solution they want with a competitive energy price. This is the key for AVK, as it wants its microgrids to be competitive with the grid to ease burden and keep hyperscalers happy.

“It’s really exciting,” Pritchard says. “EaaS is game-changing for the market, and it’s the last piece of our platform to grow the microgrid side of the business.”

As power becomes more of a strategic asset, it also becomes more complex. For the last 40 years, data centers have been built very similarly, but now multiple generative assets are all trying to talk to each other. This means an end-to-end power strategy becomes more essential to meet demand.

To confront this, AVK’s controls company can manage power distribution, in addition to its PowerPod business recently launched in Haydock, England, and its standby assets to achieve availability.

“If you start to look at BTM solutions or EaaS as just siloed, you end up with a sporadic mix of different companies and different technologies, and it’s actually quite difficult to manage,” Pritchard explains. “At the core of our success has been being able to work across all the platforms of the power solution.”

Redefining the cost landscape

The catalyst for AVK’s EaaS model is its new funding arm, AVK Capital, first launched in September 2026. It’s designed to finance, own, and operate on-site data center power infrastructure, ultimately hoping to remove industry cost barriers.

A significant step for AVK, the company took on investment from Partners Group, securing significant funding to deploy the microgrids that underpin the EaaS solution.

“AVK Capital is the catalyst for EaaS,” Pritchard shares. “Without capital, we can’t invest, own the asset, or start seeing a PPA from the client. Capital’s not hard to come by in the data center industry, but finding the right partner is quite important.”

With an offering like this, the blueprint can evolve so developers don’t have to fund their own microgrids, or own a power plant, anymore. With its new offering, perhaps the first of its kind, AVK expects the evolution to involve taking more generative assets, so looking at standby engines and PowerPods.

“When you start to think about the economics behind that, it materially changes the return for the developer,” Pritchard says. “That’s really interesting, because you’ve completely changed the way developers make money: they’re making more money because they’re not spending as much money.”

The company expects AVK Capital to enable the industry to move towards a world where the grid isn’t the desired piece anymore. As BTM solutions become more acceptable, this plus a capital solution is expected to be the norm.

“BTM solutions unlock this ability to take all of your generative assets into a capital solution,” Pritchard adds. “If you’re proving that you’re cheaper than the grid, you can get green electrons through renewable PPAs, you can start to look at things like biomethane, and you can prove the availability and reliability of the BTM system – why do you need to have a grid connection?”

Modular by design

Eager to continue developing its position in the data center industry, AVK continues to bet big on modular power. A significant part of this strategy is its Haydock facility, the UK’s first standalone manufacturing hub for its PowerPods to support AI infrastructure across the data center industry.

While the PowerPods make up the core business plan for the site, the long-term plan is to extend that into thinking about microgrids in greater depth.

“We will still do a significant amount of pods – that’s great business for us. But when you start to think about a microgrid, you have generative assets (fuel cells, turbines, engines) and then you have all these distribution modules – containerized switch rooms, essentially – that will be built in Haydock,” Pritchard explains.

Ultimately, the Haydock location will start to underpin AVK’s overall offering, becoming a driver of both AVK Capital and its microgrid journey.

“It’s a great space to be in terms of modularity and demand. We’re seeing a lot of success here,” Pritchard notes.

AVK’s approach to its PowerPods is slightly different to industry expectations, as the company prides itself on an agnostic approach. While most PowerPod providers are either a switchgear manufacturer or a UPS manufacturer, AVK said their offerings offer the opportunity to build something quicker.

“We now have the ability to pick the best‑delivery UPS vendor, switchgear vendor, transformer vendor, and battery vendor,” Pritchard says. “We can actually beat the market because we have no constraint on who we go to, whereas some of our competitors will be constrained by their own UPS factory, for example, because they want to sell their own UPS.”

He adds: “We can sell on cost, time, or technical advantage, because we are agnostic. That’s our unique piece and why we’re a bit of an outlier in that space.”

Improving perceptions, building potential

The conversation about on-site power solutions comes during a critical time for the data center industry, particularly in the face of public opposition to new and existing sites.

Although overwhelming pushback is taking place in the US, arguments have crossed over the Atlantic to major European markets like Slough in London, where, for example, a petition has been signed to pause data center developments. While countries across Europe perhaps have tougher permitting regulations than the US, resistance from local communities remains.

For Pritchard, this emphasizes a need for greater education over how powerful BTM solutions can be.

“Europe, and indeed the rest of the world, has an energy transition issue. Part of that is generative assets and infrastructure,” he says. “It’s a new education piece; data centers are an interesting space when we consider what the public actually thinks.”

When thinking about how data centers are driving significant infrastructure to be built, including gigawatts of BTM solutions, Pritchard notes that the availability of these assets can start to be integrated with the grid.

“Given the significant amount of solar and wind in the market, for instance, you need something that can underpin them,” he explains. “So the data center market has done a significant amount of heavy lifting on infrastructure.

“I think BTM solutions can be great, but we’ve also got to get over the way data centers are perceived in general.”

As the balance is expected to shift between BTM generation and grid-connected supply over the next few years, Pritchard sees a world where the grid will be unable to keep up in five years’ time.

“There will definitely be sites that have grid connections and are buying generation for the next three years on our standby business, but given the sheer demand and scale we’re facing, I can’t see how grid infrastructure keeps up,” he explains.

For AVK, this leaves BTM solutions as the expected way of ensuring power for data centers.

“We fit in with AVK Capital and our EaaS approach, as it makes everything easier,” he says. “I feel that we’re four or five years ahead of the market, having been one of the only businesses to actually build this approach, and now having the finance model alongside us.”

Learn more about AVK Capital and the benefits that Energy as a Service provides to data centre operators across the UK and Europe.