Summary
- PowerCore integrates RMUs, transformers, switchgear, UPS systems, and busbar infrastructure into a factory-built unit.
- Durata says the approach can reduce on-site construction time by up to 60%.
- The product targets a market where AI load is raising rack densities and stretching critical power supply chains.
Durata has launched PowerCore, a factory-built integrated powertrain designed to combine major electrical infrastructure for data centres and other critical facilities into a pre-integrated system.
The modular product brings together ring main units, transformers, switchgear, UPS systems, and busbar infrastructure. Durata says it is designed, fabricated, integrated, and tested at the company’s 80,000 sq ft facility in the North East of England.
The company says the approach can cut on-site construction time by up to 60%. Its PowerCore material describes the system as vendor agnostic, allowing equipment from different OEMs across UPS, generators, switchgear, and battery technologies.
Electrical work leaves the site
Critical power is one of the hardest parts of data centre delivery to compress. Transformers, switchgear, UPS systems, generators, batteries, busbar, protection systems, and controls must be procured, installed, integrated, tested, and commissioned before a facility can carry load.
Factory-built power modules are intended to reduce interface risk and shorten programmes by moving more assembly and testing into a controlled environment. The model can also reduce on-site labour, improve repeatability, and allow electrical integration to run in parallel with building works.
That approach is gaining ground as AI and hyperscale customers push for faster energisation while equipment supply chains remain tight. The electrical chain is often the critical path, not a supporting package. A delay in transformers, switchboards, or protection systems can hold back an entire data hall.
Higher racks, tighter programmes
Durata says PowerCore is suitable for rack densities from 10kW to 150kW. That range covers conventional colocation and higher-density AI or HPC environments, where distribution design, fault protection, cooling, and maintenance become more demanding.
Standardised modules can also help operators plan repeatable expansion. If each phase uses a consistent powertrain, spare parts, training, maintenance procedures, testing, and commissioning can become more predictable. The advantage is strongest where customers can fix requirements early and repeat designs across multiple halls or sites.
The trade-off is flexibility. Bespoke grid conditions, late customer changes, unusual redundancy requirements, or site-specific constraints can weaken the modular advantage. Vendor-agnostic design helps, but project teams still need early decisions on voltage levels, backup philosophy, monitoring, batteries, generators, cooling, and protection.
PowerCore sits inside a wider industrialisation trend in data centre construction. Prefabricated electrical rooms, modular plant skids, containerised power, standardised cooling packages, and off-site integration are being used to reduce schedule risk. The method works only when manufacturing capacity, logistics, factory acceptance testing, and site readiness line up.
The UK manufacturing base also gives the launch an industrial angle. Data centre growth is increasingly tied to domestic capability in electrical systems, backup power, controls, and manufacturing. If PowerCore moves into repeat deployments, Durata will be selling not just equipment but a way to remove some site risk from the power chain.
