ARLINGTON, Va. – The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) announced new guidance to help data center developers evaluate direct current (DC) power systems, as artificial intelligence drives growing demand for electricity and higher-density computing.
NEMA’s Data Center Design Considerations for Direct Current (DC) Power Systems (NEMA CS 70018-2026) examines the opportunities, technical requirements, and safety considerations involved in integrating DC power into data center infrastructure. The publication is the latest addition to NEMA’s expanding library of data center resources, which support the AI Data Center Energy Performance Framework developed with ASHRAE and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
“Every unnecessary power conversion inside a data center represents an opportunity to improve efficiency. And in an energy-intensive AI data center, even modest improvements can add up to significant energy savings,” said NEMA SVP of Strategy, Technical, and Industry Affairs Patrick Hughes. “DC power architectures offer promising possibilities, but they also change how facilities are designed, protected, and operated. This new guidance gives the industry a shared, manufacturer-neutral foundation for evaluating those opportunities and tradeoffs safely and effectively.
NEMA projects that data center energy consumption could increase as much as 300% over the next 10 years.
Most data centers rely on alternating current (AC) power architectures, with electricity converted to DC to energize computing equipment. Each conversion introduces some energy losses and generates heat that must then be addressed by cooling systems. DC architectures could reduce the number of conversion stages to improve energy efficiency, lower operating costs and ease thermal management needs. They may also offer advantages for integrating battery storage and on-site renewable generation.
NEMA CS 70018-2026 addresses the technical, operational, and regulatory considerations associated with DC power architectures, helping engineers and facility managers assess:
Energy efficiency: Opportunities to reduce conversion losses and associated cooling requirements.
System integration: Considerations for connecting DC distribution with computing equipment, battery storage and other facility systems.
Safety and reliability: Requirements involving DC-rated equipment, fault protection, maintenance, and system coordination.
Practical deployment: Equipment availability, infrastructure compatibility, and other factors affecting installation and long-term operation.
The guidance is intended to support decisions early in the design process, giving owners, engineers, manufacturers and other stakeholders a common reference for evaluating DC power options.
“The adoption of DC power architectures requires careful coordination between power distribution equipment, protection systems, energy storage, and computing infrastructure,” said Brian Deckard, Technical Expert, Siemens. “This resource helps the industry align on the technical considerations necessary to improve efficiency while maintaining safety, reliability, and operational resilience.”
The publication complements NEMA’s existing guidance on low-voltage distribution equipment (NEMA BS 31061-2026) and data center cooling technologies (NEMA BE 50104-2026). Together, these resources help developers evaluate electrical distribution and cooling as interconnected elements of data center design—particularly as increasingly powerful AI systems create new demands on both.
All three publications support NEMA’s broader AI Data Center Energy Performance Framework, which brings together technical guidance and best practices for safe, reliable and efficient data center development and operation.
Learn more about NEMA’s data center resources here.
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