ABB pairs ultracapacitor energy storage with grid-forming power conversion in a system built for Irish grid-code compliance, though ratings, pricing and first deployments remain unclear.

ABB has introduced an energy storage system built around ultracapacitors rather than batteries, positioned as a way for data centers to comply with Ireland’s grid code, Data Center Dynamics reports. The system pairs the storage hardware with grid-forming power conversion, a combination that suggests the target is grid stability support rather than backup runtime.

Ultracapacitors occupy a different corner of the storage map than lithium-ion. They deliver high power over seconds, tolerate frequent charge and discharge cycling, and carry little of the energy density needed for extended runtime. That profile fits fast grid services, the kind of work that shortens the life of a battery asked to do it every day.

Grid-forming conversion is the other half of the pairing. A grid-forming converter can set its own voltage and frequency reference rather than following the grid’s, which lets a connected site contribute stability to a network instead of only drawing from it. On grids running high shares of variable renewable generation, system operators increasingly want that behaviour from large loads as well as from generators.

Several figures are unknown. How the system maps onto specific clauses of the Irish grid code, and at what power ratings ABB will ship it, has not been established. The same goes for discharge duration, footprint per megawatt, price, and whether a first site has committed to the hardware.

Compliance equipment of this kind sits between the utility connection and the critical bus, so it lands in the electrical scope of a build alongside switchgear and UPS. Whether it displaces part of the UPS budget or simply adds a line to it will depend on those ratings.

If Irish connection approvals come to hinge on grid-supporting behaviour at the customer’s meter, seconds-scale high-power storage could become a standard siting cost rather than an option. Buyers weighing Dublin-area capacity should press vendors on whether systems like ABB’s shorten the interconnect path or only lengthen the electrical bill of materials.