Improving Electrical Reliability to Meet AI Power Demand

 

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Industry Challenge 
Artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented growth in data center power demand. As GPU density and continuous AI workloads increase, data centers are projected to consume nearly nine percent of total U.S. electricity by 2030, putting extreme strain on regional electrical grids.

In areas with dense data center clusters, such as Northern Virginia, substations, transmission lines, and high-current equipment are approaching their design limits. Even brief outages can lead to service disruption, financial loss, and data integrity risks.

As grids operate closer to their thermal and mechanical limits, maintaining the reliability of individual electrical connections becomes increasingly critical. Even small losses in bolt preload can rapidly increase contact resistance, generate localized heating, and accelerate joint degradation.

Solution 
Solon’s Belleville disc spring washers improve the reliability of high-current electrical joints by maintaining consistent clamping force despite thermal fluctuations, vibration, creep, and long-term relaxation. They compensate for preload loss caused by differential expansion between materials like copper, aluminum, and steel, often reducing losses by a factor of five or more.

Applied across switchgear, transformers, busbars, circuit breakers, and energy storage systems, Belleville washers minimize resistance-related heating, extend service life, and reduce maintenance. Their live-load capability ensures continuous performance even under rapid load fluctuations, aligning with IEEE, IEC, and NEMA standards for high-reliability connections in mission-critical power infrastructure.

By addressing these connection-level risks, Solon’s Belleville washers help ensure reliable, continuous power for AI-driven data centers.

Download the case study, Improving Electrical Reliability to Meet AI Power Demand to learn more about how Solon’s Belleville washers improve grid reliability amid rising data center power demand.