Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Episode: Battery Booms and the Rise of Flexibility

Release Date: March 30, 2026
Guest: Sean McAvoy, President and Chief Product Officer, GridBeyond
Host: Steven Lacy (for Shayle Kann)
Partner Content by Latitude Media

Overview

This episode explores the rapidly evolving landscape of grid flexibility, especially as energy markets adapt to the rise of battery storage, AI, and booming demand from data centers. Guest Sean McAvoy draws on his deep experience developing AI energy platforms, sharing practical insights on market cycles, technological evolution, and the operational challenges and opportunities presented by surging data center loads. The conversation balances optimism about new capabilities with realism about the complexities and trade-offs of the energy transition.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

How AI-Driven Platforms Are Changing Energy Markets

• Sean McAvoy’s Background:

  • Transitioned from AI software entrepreneurship into energy after being challenged to build something around battery and forecasting patents ([00:20]).
  • Identified the unique complexity of the energy market: "Of all the businesses that I've been in...the energy industry is highly complex." (Sean McAvoy, [00:47])

• Evolution from Hardware to AI-Driven Optimization:

  • GridBeyond evolved from hardware installations (industrial site controls) to an AI-powered platform optimizing energy use and market participation ([01:45]).
  • The focus: uncover flexibility and allow customers to monetize it via cost savings, revenue, or increased reliability ([02:33]).

• Real-Time Orchestration & Digital Twins:

  • Data centers require coordination across cooling, generators, batteries, and computing loads.
  • “That is all done by software and it's all done by intelligence...with models built in a digital twin environment such that you can orchestrate and control all of the moving parts.” (Sean McAvoy, [03:13])

The New Pace of Technological Change in Energy

• Acceleration of Onsite Decision-Making:

  • Shift from cloud-based controls to local, sub-50 millisecond AI-driven decisions is transforming responsiveness ([04:10]).
  • "The goal right now...is like sub 50 millisecond response. So you start doing your inferencing and decision making locally...so you can see what it just did." (Sean McAvoy, [04:10])

• Role of AI:

  • AI now enables energy assets (batteries, fuel cells, etc.) to act in milliseconds, often before a blackout or brownout can occur ([04:03]-[05:24]).

How Battery Markets Boom, Saturate, and Evolve (UK, Texas, Japan, Australia)

• Market Cycles:

  • Battery markets experience cycles: rapid build-out → saturation → price drops → projects pause → eventual new demand and rebound ([06:11]).
  • UK’s experience: Early saturation, prices dropped, hard for batteries to recuperate investments.
  • Texas (ERCOT): Battery pricing peaked in 2023, then dropped; similar cyclicality expected as demand, especially from data centers, grows.
  • Japan: At the start of the cycle—sky-high battery prices ([06:11]).
  • Australia: Widespread deployment of small-scale, sub-5MW batteries to aid in grid stability.

• Quote:

  • “It's all kind of cyclical in terms of it'll get saturated, it'll be too many, and then demand will come back as it keeps growing over a number of years. And then you'll see the prices being more beneficial to batteries.” (Sean McAvoy, [09:52])

• Strategic Shifts During Saturation:

  • Fine-tuning forecasting and optimization models becomes essential as price spreads narrow ([11:04]).
  • Sales focus shifts to where demand is outpacing supply, e.g., PJM and MISO now present new lucrative opportunities as prices spike and incentives appear ([11:04]).

Data Centers: Flexibility, Challenges, and the Limits of Batteries

• Impact on Storage:

  • Data center growth will impact storage, but batteries are only part of the solution, not a silver bullet ([13:55]).
  • Long-duration batteries can help data centers handle curtailment events, but ultimate priority is firm baseload power and uptime ([13:55]).
  • “Data centers need firm baseload power...That is number one on their list. It'll always be number one because reliability is their number one concern.” (Sean McAvoy, [14:46])

• Curtailment Dynamics:

  • Operators strongly resist curtailment; if forced, may reconsider location or energy supply arrangements ([16:15]).
  • 30- to 60-minute curtailment with advance notice may be tolerable with smart job scheduling and workload shifting between data centers.

• Types of Data Centers and Flexibility:

  • "The ones that are the most flexible by far are the crypto data centers...But when you're talking about real-time processing and inferencing...you do not want to curtail those." (Sean McAvoy, [18:33])
  • Multi-tenant/public data centers need sub-metering and tenant agreements for curtailment ([18:33]).

• Notable Use Case:

  • Crypto mining centers act as “shock absorbers,” dynamically participating in both energy markets and their core operations, sometimes to the dismay of policymakers ([18:33]).

Solar + Storage: Benefits and Limitations

• Supplementary Role:

  • Solar-plus-storage can help bridge gaps but is not a replacement for new firm generation ([21:05]).
  • Data centers and energy providers are willing to install batteries to alleviate grid congestion, often negotiating with utilities for faster interconnections ([21:05]).

• "Bring Your Own Capacity":

  • A trend toward collaborative approaches, where data centers fund batteries or storage sited to maximize grid benefit and accelerate their own commissioning ([22:26]).

• Quote:

  • "More collaboration between everyone. And really what we have right now is like we have a deployment problem…We have the solutions to solve the problem, but how do we deploy it at scale in a fast enough time to get these data centers online?" (Sean McAvoy, [22:28])

Trade-Offs in Resource Mix: Everything’s on the Table

• Resource Realism:
  • “Nothing is off the table right, right now...Sustainability was number one on everyone's list in the U.S. it is not anymore.” (Sean McAvoy, [24:27])
  • Natural gas, nuclear (including retrofitting old plants), geothermal, and batteries are all back in play, driven by the urgency to meet soaring power demand from AI/data centers ([24:27]).
  • "Short-term chaos" will persist for a few years as developers use every tool available to get online quickly.

As Demand Grows, Customers Get Smarter

• Sophistication of Energy Users:
  • Major companies (Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, etc.) have bolstered in-house energy teams—deep technical engagement is now standard ([26:47]).
  • Digital twins and predictive modeling are central to efficient automated energy management.

The Energy Transition: Innovation Amid Speed Bumps

• Temporary Slowdowns, Private Leadership:

  • Industry “speed bumps” (e.g., regulatory, political) cause pauses, but large private players are filling the gap by accelerating innovation and deployment ([28:34]).
  • Rapid AI development allows solutions to be created and implemented faster than ever before.

• Quote:

  • “But filling that void is what I call the privateers...they are now, I would say, filling that gap in terms of creating their own energy management systems, their teams...solutions are being developed at a rapid pace.” (Sean McAvoy, [28:34])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Of all the businesses that I've been in and software companies I work for, the energy industry is highly complex.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [00:47])

• “The goal right now...is like sub 50 millisecond response. So you start doing your inferencing and decision making locally.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [04:10])

• “It's all kind of cyclical...you'll see the prices being more beneficial to batteries.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [09:52])

• “Data centers need firm baseload power...Reliability is their number one concern.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [14:46])

• “Bring your own capacity. More collaboration between data centers and utilities...Because the last thing that people want to see is that the cost of the energy for the data centers is getting passed down to the ratepayers.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [22:28])

• “Nothing is off the table right, right now...Sustainability was number one...it is not anymore.”
  (Sean McAvoy, [24:27])

• “We have a deployment problem…We have the solutions to solve the problem, but how do we deploy it at scale in a fast enough time to get these data centers online?”
  (Sean McAvoy, [22:28])

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |----------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:20 | McAvoy’s origin story in energy tech | | 01:45 | Evolution from hardware to AI optimization; GridBeyond’s story| | 03:13 | Data center orchestration and digital twins | | 04:10 | The acceleration of local, instant decision-making with AI | | 06:11 | How battery market cycles repeat: UK, Texas, Japan, Australia | | 11:04 | Strategies during market saturation; finding new opportunities| | 13:55 | Data centers: expansion, constraints, and curtailment realities| | 16:15 | Reluctance of data centers to curtail, negotiation strategies | | 18:33 | Crypto data centers vs. hyperscalers; flexibility differences | | 21:05 | Solar and storage’s limitations as a firm solution | | 22:28 | "Bring your own capacity" and collaborative grid solutions | | 24:27 | Reconsidering every resource: gas, nuclear, geothermal, batteries| | 26:47 | Data center customers’ growing energy sophistication | | 28:34 | Private sector filling energy transition gaps |

Conclusion

This episode provides a candid, granular look at both the promise and practical headaches of integrating new loads, storage, and renewables into the grid. Sean McAvoy’s firsthand insights—spanning battery market dynamics, the constraints of data centers, and the accelerating power of AI—capture an energy sector on the edge of profound transformation, but not without trade-offs and turbulence. The urgency of deployment, flexibility, and private innovation are key themes, all underlined by the ever-complicated dance between technology, policy, and demand.