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Is your data centre ready for a 30kW rack?
As AI workloads place increasing pressure on the UK grid in 2026, legacy power protection is no longer just inefficient. It can become a serious liability.
Without a modern high-density UPS, sudden step loads can cause systems to crash. For many facilities, now is the time to future-proof their power protection.
The step-load challenge
As summer 2026 progresses, the UK data centre sector is facing growing pressure. While the earlier part of the year focused on the challenges created by renewable integration, July brings a more aggressive issue: the energy demands of AI.
With the UK Government’s new AI growth zones coming online and the July energy price cap adjustment putting further pressure on margins, data centre operators are facing a dual challenge. It is no longer only about the cost of electricity. It is also about the dynamic way AI consumes power.
If you are using hardware designed in 2022 to protect 2026 workloads, your facility may be at risk. The move from traditional CPU-based enterprise computing to GPU-intensive AI clusters has changed the requirements for power protection, demanding the rapid response times found in high-density UPS systems.
What is a step load?
In a traditional data centre, power draw is relatively predictable. Servers ramp up as users log on, but the wide range of tasks helps create a smoother overall load curve.
AI workloads behave differently. Whether training a large language model or running large inference clusters, these workloads can be synchronised. When a job begins, thousands of GPUs may demand maximum power at the same time.
This places considerable strain on three-phase UPS distribution, as the load balance can shift almost instantly.
A step load is a sudden, significant increase in power demand. In a microsecond, a rack can move from an idle 2kW to 30kW or even 50kW.
For a legacy three-phase UPS system, this is like asking a car to go from 0 to 100mph instantly. Many older uninterruptible power supplies cannot react quickly enough and may interpret the sudden surge as a fault or overload.
The symptoms of a failing UPS
A legacy UPS struggling with AI power demands may show several warning signs.
Frequent bypass events
The UPS may regularly switch to internal bypass, leaving critical AI hardware running directly on grid power with no protection.
Voltage sags
The UPS may dip during the step load, potentially causing silent data corruption in GPU memory or crashing the training model entirely.
Thermal runaway in batteries
Legacy VRLA lead-acid batteries can struggle with the high-discharge rates required by AI spikes, leading to swelling, overheating and premature failure.
Incompatibility with liquid cooling
As AI drives a move towards liquid cooling, the UPS must also support pump and compressor loads that standard air-cooled UPS units were not designed to handle.
What data centre managers can assess now
Before calling in engineers, data centre managers can carry out a July power audit to understand whether their facility is at risk.
Check UPS utilisation against peak demand
Do not focus only on the average load. Look at the transient load.
Check UPS logs for overload or bypass warnings that occur at the same time as a new AI batch begins. If a legacy unit is already reaching 80% utilisation, a 20% step load may be enough to trip the system.
Monitor the ambient temperature
In summer, server rooms can quickly become hot. AI racks may generate three to five times the heat of standard racks.
Use a thermal camera to check the temperature of UPS battery strings. If they are exceeding 25°C, battery life may be significantly reduced.
Review the redundancy logic
Is the N+1 architecture genuinely N+1 for peak loads?
In many legacy setups, redundancy has only been calculated against the average load. If one unit fails during an AI spike, the remaining units may cascade into a total shutdown.
The data centre solution
Adept Power Solutions engineers resilience by focusing on three specific technological areas.
Transitioning to three-phase power
For high-density AI applications, single-phase protection is no longer suitable. Adept Power guides data centre clients towards industrial-grade three-phase UPS systems, such as the Riello Sentryum or Eaton 93PM G2.
These systems are designed for 100% step-load acceptance, meaning they can handle a 0% to 100% load jump without dropping out of double-conversion mode.
They also provide an electronic barrier between a volatile grid supply and sensitive GPU hardware.
The lithium-ion advantage
In the high-heat, high-spike environment of an AI data centre, lead-acid batteries can become the weak link.
Adept Power is experienced in UPS lithium-ion retrofitting. Lithium-ion batteries are better suited to deep, rapid discharges than VRLA batteries and can also operate safely at higher temperatures, helping reduce cooling demands during warmer months.
Modular scalability
Building for 500kW today when only 100kW is needed can waste capital expenditure.
Adept Power specialises in modular UPS architectures. Data centre operators can start with a 100kW frame and add 20kW power modules as their AI cluster grows.
If a module fails, it can be hot-swapped, allowing repairs to be carried out while AI training remains online.
Partner with Adept Power
Adept Power takes a service-first approach to critical power protection.
The company’s 24/7 operations centre monitors UPS health, tracking battery impedance and internal temperatures in real time to identify hot cells before they cause failure.
Adept Power also manufactures external maintenance bypass switches in-house, allowing an entire UPS system to be isolated for maintenance without powering down AI racks.
Its engineers use high-speed power quality analysers to map step-load profiles, helping ensure the UPS specified is the UPS actually required.
The AI revolution presents a major opportunity for UK data centres, but it is also placing infrastructure under serious pressure.
If your UPS is beeping, cooling bills are rising or you are concerned that your current system will not cope with the next AI workload spike, Adept Power Solutions can help with a high-density power audit.
For more information on Why is Your Legacy UPS Failing the GPU Step-Load Test? talk to Adept Power Solutions Ltd