Co-Location With The Load
MetroVolt is meant to sit beside the data center it powers, generating electricity where it is consumed instead of importing it across the grid.
Generate where you consume
Most large loads are served by distant plants over transmission and distribution networks. Every kilometre of that path adds losses, exposure to faults, and dependence on a shared, congested grid. Co-location inverts the arrangement: the generator sits on or beside the campus, feeding the compute bus over a short, dedicated electrical path.
Co-location is possible for MetroVolt because direct energy conversion removes the steam cycle, so the plant needs very little water and a modest footprint, and because the D-³He reaction is low-neutron (5.44%), which keeps the shielding envelope bounded rather than sprawling. A source that needed a river and a large exclusion zone could not sit beside an urban campus. The short internal path also keeps the campus electrically simpler, with fewer intermediate substations and less exposure to faults on shared regional lines.
Co-location does not remove the grid; it re-roles it. The interconnection becomes a backup and balancing path rather than the primary supply. That matters directly for the availability gate: because a single burner cannot yet meet Tier III uptime, Read correctly, co-location and redundancy answer different questions: co-location decides where the energy is made, and redundancy decides what happens when the primary source is unavailable, and a serious campus resolves both.
- Short dedicated path cuts losses and shared-grid exposure
- Enabled by low water use and bounded shielding
- Grid becomes backup/balancing, not primary
- Co-location and redundancy are complementary, not alternatives