Longtime Auto Supplier Eyes Data Center Needs with 'Living Lab' Microgrid

May 22, 2026

Chris Clonts

The microgrid has 2.8 MWh of battery storage, allowing it to store energy and balance loads when the solar panels are less helpful. (Delta)

Delta Electronics, the global power management company with deep roots in automotive technology, said it is expanding the microgrid it has built at its Plymouth, Michigan, location.

But while the site will conduct research in vehicle charging and V2G tech, the company’s sights are set on a rapidly developing sector: data centers.

Delta’s microgrid includes solar generation rated at 425 kW, eight Level 2 EV chargers and a 400 kW DC fast charger developed in a Department of Energy-funded program. All that is connected through a 13.2 kV medium-voltage interconnection provided by DTE Energy. That kind of connection is normally reserved for utility-scale infrastructure, the company said in a news release.

Supporting the microgrid is Delta’s 3MW power conditioning system (PCS) and 2.8 MWh of stationary battery storage. All operations are controlled by Delta’s energy management system (EMS) software and monitored by the in-house VTScada supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.

Delta Americas is based in Fremont, California, but it has other offices all over. By far its largest manufacturing site is in Plano, Texas.

The solar powers the entire building, achieving net-zero operation, during the sunny months. The other six months of the year, the system works to manage load and lower peak-demand charges, reducing overall energy costs.

The site has solar panels rated at 425 kW of power generation. It’s enough to power 50 percent of the site’s annual needs. (Delta)

SAE Media was able to visit the site and sit down with William Mao, Delta’s vice president of energy solutions for Delta Electronics Americas. Mao beamed when talking about what is perhaps the centerpiece of the microgrid: a solid-state transformer that uses power conversion controlled digitally to enable faster grid response, real-time voltage regulation and more, improving system efficiency. Mao said the current transformer can handle about 300 kW, adding that the company is working on one that will be rated as high as 1.5 MW.

Mao said lab testing shows how a technology can perform in isolation. “Day-to-day usage provides the [live grid] data and experience that shape how resilient, grid-interactive systems can be… deployed at scale,” he said.

Eventually, the Plymouth site will add an additional five energy storage circuits, including two back-to-back 5 MWh units configured to emulate large loads. That will allow Delta to test black starts, off-grid switching and grid-loss recovery without requiring a MW-scale physical presence.

Following are excerpts from SAE Media’s interview with Mao, edited for length and clarity.

SAE Media: You said your history was mostly in 24v DC and below, such as PC chargers and batteries, before a move into larger power control and power electronics? Why is now a time for microgrids?

William Mao, vice president of energy solutions for Delta Electronics Americas. (Delta)

Mao: We've already reached a level of maturity and we were already into the solution business, so the decision was to move upwards into, we call it the gray space, and it's also driven by the demand, which is our biggest customer segment, it's the data centers, so they're also moving into the space, so it's natural progression to provide the micro grid solution.

SAE Media: Talk a little about the solid-state transformer. What’s the benefit of that?

Mao: The [technology] you have in your iPhone, or anything else, has gotten much better in the last few years. So the whole solid-state electronic space is to control power flow, right? One directional or bidirectional, and so the solid state transformer is reaching a point where it's going to be game-changing technology. You can go from medium-voltage AC down to a low-voltage DC, so that is going to be what data center folks, or even utility folks, look at because of the size and the efficiency.

SAE Media: Is there an optimal size, from a power perspective, for data centers where they're kind of at maximum efficiency or will you help supply them no matter how big they get?

Mao: When I first got into data center business [around 2018] each data center rack was around 10 kW or so, and now you have 500 kW to 1 MW. So it’s much denser, meaning the power required to feed the data center is bigger. It’s the same thing with solid-state transformers. So, traditional transformers, you're stepping down from AC, that's 138 kV here to let's say thirteen-two [wiring] from Detroit Edison. You pick it up from the medium voltage, and most of the commercial or industrial [facilities?], they will take it from 40 V, and then go on down. So, they said we'll take it from 40 V and it convert it to DC, which could be 150 V DC, and then they would feed it to the racks. So you have multiple stages, and the solid state transfer will literally eliminate one or two stages of it. At each stage you have inefficiencies or power losses. The SST literally eliminates some of the layers of losses.

SAE Media: Data centers seem to be in such demand. How do they view the cost of new technology like modern SSTs?

Mao: Even though you're getting a small form factor, and you get a lot of power in a small space, the cost is still not there. [But] now with the data center folks, they're making the demand there, and they're willing to pay for the smaller form factor and also the efficiency of the SST, so that's why demand is being reinvigorated and accelerated.

SAE Media: You said that hydrogen fuel cells are also a possibility for this site.

Mao: I remember attending some of DOE conferences, and I remember [Energy] Secretary [Jennifer] Granholm out there waving big checks for something like nine hydrogen hubs, and a year later, no one had taken a check, because if you take that check, that means you're gonna invest 10x on the infrastructure. And at the time, the demand was not there. Now, fuel cells are being adopted by some of the data center folks, and we have our own fuel cells in development.