The world’s digital ambitions are heating up, quite literally. As data centers multiply to support artificial intelligence, streaming platforms, cloud computing, and connected devices, the problem of cooling the machines driving the digital economy without overwhelming an already strained power grid, persists. One of the most elegant solutions doesn’t rely on futuristic machinery or experimental fuels. It relies on something far simpler- ice.
Known as “ice batteries,” these systems belong to a class of technologies called thermal energy storage. Their principle is both low-tech and clever: electricity is used late at night, when demand is lowest, to freeze large volumes of water. That ice is stored onsite, then melted during the hottest parts of the day to chill water circulating through buildings or server halls. Cooling still happens as usual, the breakthrough lies in when electricity is consumed, shifting demand away from peak hours when grids are stretched thin and energy prices spike.
Across the globe, cooling has become a major driver of energy consumption. Air conditioning already accounts for about 20% of electricity use across homes and commercial buildings, surging to nearly 70% on extreme summer days. At the same time, energy-hungry data centers, the nerve centers of AI, add a new layer of strain. The International Energy Agency estimates data centers consumed about 1.5% of global electricity in 2024, a share projected to triple by 2030 as countries race to build larger and faster AI infrastructure. Much of this growing demand is still met by fossil fuels, especially natural gas, raising alarms that climate progress could stall under the weight of digital expansion.
This convergence has turned cooling into more than a building-management issue. It has become a core challenge of grid stability and decarbonization, exactly where ice batteries start to look less like an oddity and more like a strategic tool.
Ice Isn’t Experimental. It’s Already at Work
Thermal storage systems are no longer confined to research labs. They are already cooling office towers, hospitals, hotels, and commercial facilities across the U.S. One of the most striking examples is Manhattan’s iconic Eleven Madison skyscraper, which consumes roughly 500,000 pounds of ice every single day, the equivalent of three city buses packed solid with ice cubes, to cool the building during peak demand hours.
The system was installed by Trane Technologies Commercial HVAC Americas, which says the building’s ice storage cuts cooling costs by as much as 40%. Company president Holly Paeper explained that while most buildings pull electricity from the grid during punishing summer afternoons, Eleven Madison cools itself with electricity used the night before, when power is cheaper and demand is low.
Trane reports more than 4,000 installations worldwide, though this remains a modest footprint compared to the roughly six million commercial buildings in the U.S. alone. Scaling the technology remains the next challenge and one scientists are actively tackling.
Reinventing the Chemistry of Cold
At Texas A&M University, researchers are studying how the underlying materials used in ice batteries can be made more efficient, reliable, and durable. These systems rely on salt hydrates, chemical compounds that enable liquids to convert into solid ice during charging. They also depend on “nucleation particles,” which trigger the crystallization process.
The precise pairing of these substances determines how much energy is needed to freeze water, how long the systems last, and how well they integrate with heat pumps and HVAC equipment. In work published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry, the team found that nucleation particles containing barium performed especially well, improving freeze reliability and lowering energy requirements.
As co-author Professor Patrick Shamberger explains, the challenge isn’t inventing ice batteries — the technology has existed for years, but perfecting the materials so the systems stay functional and reversible for decades of continuous use. Lowering the energy required to freeze ice directly increases the financial appeal for building owners considering adoption.
Data Centers Step Into the Ice Age
Among the sectors showing the greatest interest is the data-center industry, where cooling alone accounts for 20% to 40% of energy use.
Startup Nostromo Energy is now adapting thermal storage specifically for large AI facilities. In November, the company launched IceBrick 360, a patented cold-thermal energy storage system engineered for high-density data centers. The technology uses industrial chillers to cool water below freezing while keeping it liquid, which then forms thick blocks of ice inside insulated storage modules. The stored ice remains ready for hours or even days.
For scale, CEO Yoram Ashery notes that a 10-megawatt data center requires roughly 13,000 ton-hours of cooling capacity. Meeting that demand using IceBrick technology would require 36 units, each holding 360 ton-hours of storage, deployed across 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of space, placed beside facilities or arranged across rooftops much like solar panels.
Energy savings are only part of ice batteries’ appeal.
As data-center construction booms, grid connections are becoming harder to secure. Power utilities are increasingly prioritizing “flexible large loads”– facilities capable of cutting electricity use during grid stress events. Ice batteries make that flexibility possible by allowing operators to cool without drawing power during peak hours.
The advantage is growing more valuable as commercial electricity rates have risen nearly 30% since 2020 and the average wait time for new grid connections across the U.S. has ballooned to four years, according to JLL.
Thermal storage also strengthens facility resilience. During outages or disruptions, stored ice can maintain cooling for several hours, buying valuable time for backup systems to activate.
In December 2024, Nostromo secured a conditional loan guarantee commitment of up to $305.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy IceBrick systems at as many as 193 commercial buildings across California, including a substantial number of data centers. Although approved under a prior administration with different energy policies, Ashery says he remains optimistic that the funding will proceed, citing distributed thermal storage’s value to grid reliability and affordability.
Ice batteries won’t magically solve the AI energy challenge alone. But by shifting cooling loads away from peak periods, lowering costs, improving resilience, and easing the pressure to construct new fossil-fuel power plants, they offer one of the most practical strategies available for reconciling AI growth with climate goals.
