How Fuel Resiliency Provides A More Sustainable And Reliable Power Supply For Data Centers

With the rapid growth of data centers, operators are becoming increasingly aware of their fuel consumption and its impact on their daily operations.

In response, they are prioritizing fuel resiliency, which is the ability to maintain a reliable fuel supply for backup generators, ensuring continuous operation during power outages and helping to prevent downtime and data loss. 

ESI Total Fuel Management has provided mission-critical fuel services and fuel delivery in Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley for three decades, with its equipment installed in the first AOL data center in Northern Virginia in 1997. Throughout numerous owner changes to the facility, the equipment is still working.

ESI CEO and President Alexander Marcus recognized early on that facilities designed for continuous uptimes would need to store fuel for emergency generators and that fuel could often be stagnant for long periods, putting owners at risk.

Marcus said the existing fuel supply chain infrastructure wasn't built to support the growing data center industry. It required a paradigm shift, which led to ESI developing a new fuel supply model. 

“At ESI, we think about fuel resiliency so our customers don’t have to,” he said. “Fuel resiliency today is no longer about quantity — it’s about quality, accessibility and accountability.”

ESI’s iFUELSECURE offers real-time insight into the health of fuel and backup power systems.

Marcus said this provides information both on how long systems can run with the fuel they have on hand and also whether that fuel will perform in emergencies and allow the facility to comply with its emissions thresholds and pass regulatory scrutiny.

“This type of visibility helps customers make smarter operational decisions, extend runtime confidence and reduce unnecessary maintenance,” Marcus said. 

ESI has also developed a clean fuel system for data centers to ensure quality and reliability. The system addresses the challenge of fuel sitting unused in large generators, which can lead to environmental and operational issues if not properly managed. 

“Our system helps maintain clean, reliable fuel, supporting both environmental sustainability and operational efficiency for data centers,” Marcus said. “ESI is a disruptor in the industry, advocating for cleaner fuels and better fuel management practices well before regulatory mandates were in place.”

Marcus said that ESI’s stewardship is a big part of its business, helping its customers’ operations run more efficiently and reduce environmental impact. This enables them to focus on what matters most: keeping their systems online and their commitments secure. 

Sustainability is another key component of ESI’s mission. Marcus said that while many data centers were still in the talking stages of using hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO, as a cleaner alternative to diesel, ESI was able to speed up adoption by being a leader in facilitating the adoption and expansion of HVO fuel access to the East Coast. 

“Regulators and operators knew HVO could reduce emissions without sacrificing performance, but no one had solved how to get it consistently, cleanly and reliably into mission-critical tanks on the East Coast,” Marcus said. “We didn’t wait for the infrastructure to arrive — we created it. We built the supply chain, vetted the logistics and developed the protocols to make HVO available at scale for our customers.”

He added that ESI is more than “a fuel supplier, we're a solution engineer.” Data centers making the transition to HVO isn't just about checking an environmental, social and corporate governance box. It is about “protecting uptime by reducing carbon emissions without altering performance and becoming responsible neighbors to the communities around us,” he said. 

One example Marcus gave is a global colocation data center company that wanted to be an early adopter of HVO but needed a partner like ESI to walk it through the process. Like other operators, it had concerns about whether HVO would damage the equipment, whether the tanks would need to be flushed and how it could convince its internal teams and external stakeholders that this transition would be successful. 

“They wanted to make one of their East Coast sites fully functional on just HVO,” Marcus said. “In addition to evaluating their business operation and infrastructure readiness, they also wanted to remove and relocate their current ULSD inventory. We were able to ensure proper tank cleaning, monitoring HVO integrity and documenting everything for bookkeepers, auditors and regulators.”

ESI educated the client on the makeup of the HVO price per gallon and regulations and federal policy associated with it.

“What ESI offered was not just technical guidance. It was assurance,” Marcus said. 

Marcus said that fuel efficiency isn't just about how much is used but also how intelligently it's managed.

He is excited about the shift from hours-based to consumption-based permitting. While only about a dozen states have adopted it, he said that the benefits are clear: Instead of being limited by fixed runtime allowances, facilities can be permitted runtime by how much fuel they consume.  

“When facilities are measured by what they use, not a theoretical maximum, they can gain both flexibility and insight,” Marcus said. “That shift can reduce emissions, avoid unnecessary restrictions and create a data trail regulators can trust because ESI provides verified, highly accurate, measured consumption, not just a calculated number from the engine control module.” 

Marcus said that ESI wants to continue to develop the tools that support the future of fuel resiliency, and providing what the customers need is at the heart of this commitment.

“Fuel demand isn’t slowing down, but neither is our commitment to meet that demand with integrity, innovation and precision,” he said. “Our role is to anticipate what our customers will need tomorrow and to start building it today. If we do that faithfully, our customers can keep doing what they do best.”

This article was produced in collaboration between ESI Total Fuel Management and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

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