Retrofit Revolution: Why Reviving Old Data Centers is Critical for the Power Squeeze and the Environment
Making the country’s thousands of aging data centers more efficient and sustainable is a key strategy to keep pace with the growth of AI.
By Anthony Lou, Infinitum
October 3, 2025 7:30 am
The AI boom is in its early innings, yet it’s already putting significant strain on the US electric grid — fueling grid disruptions, utility price increases and data center building delays. In fact, a Deloitte survey of 120 US power and data center executives finds that 72% believe power and grid capacity is the leading challenge for data center development.
The amount of power needed for some data centers is significant. A single hyperscale data center’s power consumption draws approximately 100 megawatts (MW) continuously — the equivalent of a small city.
Anthony Lou is Director of Mission Critical at Infinitum. He has been in the robotics and electric motor industry for nearly 20 years focusing on servicing manufacturers of HVAC, fan and pump equipment. Prior to joining Infinitum, he served in engineering and sales roles at Telco International, Inc and as Robotics Flight Controller and Mission Designer at NASA. Anthony earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas.
When dozens of these facilities cluster in one region, the stress on the electrical grid is unprecedented. Last summer nearly 60 data centers in Virginia suddenly dropped off the grid and switched to on-site generators as a result of an equipment fault on the grid.
The need for AI-related power shows no signs of slowing down. Electricity demand from AI-optimised data centers is projected to quadruple by 2030 — a boom that’s estimated to produce 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions globally.
As AI workloads multiply, efforts are underway to keep the electricity flowing by curtailing energy usage, integrating more renewable energy sources, leveraging smarter load management and upgrading the power grid; however, there is another approach that is often overlooked: making the thousands of aging data centers more energy efficient and sustainable.
The Data Center Energy Drain
Roughly half of the country’s data center facilities are more than 10 years old, according to the Uptime Institute. These facilities are typically 60% less efficient than modern, energy efficient facilities.
The culprit: they often have inefficient cooling equipment, which can make up 30% of a data center’s power consumption. While once considered efficient, the fan systems at the heart of cooling units are typically powered with hundreds of legacy motors. Since motor technology and standards have advanced significantly in the last ten years — these systems consume excessive energy and degrade the facility’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) score, a metric that measures the energy efficiency of a data center.
The Retrofit Opportunity
JLL, a leading real estate firm, notes the opportunity and uptick in retrofits, which is the upgrading and modernization of existing data center infrastructure, including power, cooling, and layout, to enhance its performance, efficiency and sustainability. Building new data centers can take years because of challenges in sourcing land and power for new sites, so it makes perfect sense to keep existing data center facilities competitive and efficient. It’s also a vital part of maintaining the current pace of data center growth.
Retrofitting critical equipment extends the life of existing buildings and avoids substantial environmental impact and waste associated with new construction. Upgrading cooling equipment can also reduce Scope 2 emissions, lead to lower operational costs, reduced downtime and easier serviceability for the long-term.
By changing out legacy motors with advanced, sustainable motor systems — that go beyond IE5 efficiency standards and optimize energy usage — data centers can realize a roughly 20% reduction in energy consumption. A large data center saved approximately $115,000 on electricity bills annually and avoided an estimated 600 tons of carbon each year. Retrofitting data centers can also improve reliability and serviceability by reducing downtime and lowering maintenance and labor costs, while improving the circularity of cooling systems with parts that can be easily reused.
The US has an estimated 5000 data centers. If roughly half of them are more than 10 years old, according to findings from the Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey 2024, there is an opportunity to make them 20% more efficient and avoid 1.5 million tons of carbon each year.
While we can slow the AI revolution, we can do more to propel the retrofit revolution, and in the process reduce strain on the grid, improve the efficiency of energy-hogging data centers and cut associated carbon emissions.
Read the full article at environmentenergyleader.com.
