HiPerGuard: Has ABB Solved Data Centres' Efficiency Problem?

For industries and facilities that operate 24/7, having an uninterruptible supply of power is absolutely essential. 

Take data centres, for example.

A moment of downtime in a data centre can cost millions, while it can also cause huge disruptions to our evermore digital economy.

As such, establishing energy security is a top priority for critical industries like this.

ABB is one of the latest company's to launch a new offering for the data centre sector.

This comes in the form of a medium-voltage uninterruptible power supply that is designed to reduce energy losses and give operators more control when it comes to both sourcing and managing power.

The name of this offering is the HiPerGuard.

It connects facilities directly to the grid at 34.5kV, meaning data centres can operate without having to convert or transform the voltage of electricity from the grid.

This is a problem that has historically been a killer of efficiency in large data centres, resulting in needless energy losses.

The result is a simpler power chain that ABB says could translate into significant annual savings for the operators of hyperscale sites.

"Our collaborations with the innovators driving AI infrastructure revealed a fundamental need for greater flexibility without complexity," says Sébastien Surply, Critical Power Leader for ABB's Smart Power Division.

"HiPerGuard's latest iteration delivers both, enabling facilities to scale with the power efficiency and flexibility that drives AI compute forward."

Cutting losses at the point of connection

Data centres are among the most energy-intensive buildings on the planet.

Much of that consumption has traditionally been wasted in the process of converting electricity from the grid into a form usable by servers.

The problem, generally, has been that conventional power systems step voltage down and then back up again before distribution.

Each stage of voltage conversion represents a moment when energy losses can occur.

ABB's new HiPerGuard system, however, can bypass much of this by connecting directly to the medium-voltage grid, eliminating several conversion stages in one step.

ABB reports the system operates at 98% efficiency and frames that figure in concrete financial terms: every one percent improvement in efficiency is worth approximately US$880,000 per year in a 100MW facility.

Sébastien sees this as a particularly significant moment.

"For the first time, with ABB technology, AI data centres can connect directly to the grid at 34.5kV, cutting conversion energy losses and reducing infrastructure complexity," he says.

What's more, simplifying power systems this way can also reduce the amount of copper cabling and associated electrical hardware required in data centres, meaning they can cut the physical footprint of their energy architecture by 20–25% compared with conventional set-ups.

That reclaimed space can be reallocated to IT equipment or cooling infrastructure.

Integrating renewables and on-site generation

As well as giving data centres an efficiency boost, ABB says that the latest generation of its HiPerGuard system can also support a more diverse and flexible energy mix – an important detail during the transition to renewables.

ABB says that its offering's microgrid-ready architecture enables operators to combine grid supply with on-site generation and storage. That includes everything from gas turbines, to renewable energy sources, to battery energy storage systems.

ABB's Power Exchanger technology plays an important role in this offering when it comes to battery management and grid interaction functions.

It enables something called peak shaving, which involves reducing energy consumption during periods of high demand and can lower costs where pricing is time-variable, as well as frequency regulation to help stabilise grid supply.

For operators under pressure to meet sustainability commitments, the design offers a route to increase the share of renewable energy in a facility's power mix without compromising resilience or reliability.

Scaling to match AI demand

The backdrop to ABB's launch is a sharp upward trajectory in global data centre power consumption.

Demand is forecast to rise from 80GW in 2024 to around 220GW by 2030, with AI workloads accounting for roughly 70% of that growth.

The company says that the new HiPerGuard is designed to scale incrementally alongside that demand.

Meanwhile, parallel configurations allow capacity to be expanded in stages of up to 25MW, avoiding the need for wholesale infrastructure overhauls.

On top of that, a plug-and-play converter design supports rapid integration of new technologies as power requirements evolve.

The HiPerGuard platform covers voltage levels from 4.16kV to 34.5kV and holds both IEC and UL certifications, meaning that flexibility is a big part of this offering.

When it comes to rollout, ABB has already begun deploying HiPerGuard systems across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The company, along with Ark Data Centres, powered what was described as the UK's first AI data centre in December 2025, which was a big step forward.

For the rest of the world, the 34.5kV version of the HiPerGuard system will be available to order from summer 2026, which will have data centre operators counting down the days.