As utilities confront rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence, Vancouver’s LōD Technologies is preparing to test whether AI workloads can become more responsive to the grid.
The energy intelligence company has been selected for the Dominion Energy Innovation Center’s 2026 Accelerate program and will pilot its flexible AI inference technology with Dominion Energy.
The pilot will take place in Dominion’s territory within the PJM electricity market. Dominion serves Northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centres and one of North America’s most closely watched markets for power-intensive digital infrastructure.
LōD’s technology is designed to shift AI inference computing in real time as grid conditions change. The company says it can make those adjustments without compromising performance, reliability, or the service-level agreements on which data centre and cloud customers depend.
Inference is the process through which trained AI models respond to requests and produce outputs. According to LōD, inference workloads are projected to represent up to 80% of AI-related electricity demand.
Making those workloads flexible could allow data centres to reduce or shift electricity consumption when the grid is under strain. LōD’s platform is intended to automate that process, helping operators participate in demand-response and load-flexibility programs without relying on manual intervention or sacrificing uptime.
“Flexibility is quickly becoming a requirement for the next generation of data centers,” said Medi Naseri, chief executive officer of LōD Technologies. “Regulators, policymakers, and utilities are increasingly calling for large computing loads to become more responsive and better integrated with the grid.”
Naseri said the pilot is intended to demonstrate how compute flexibility could become a “practical, measurable, and scalable grid resource.”
The project arrives as utilities, regulators, and data centre operators search for ways to accommodate rapidly growing computing loads without compromising grid reliability. LōD says its technology can help create additional grid headroom while enabling operators to comply with emerging stability requirements.
“Dominion Energy’s partnership with the DEIC allows us to identify and support innovative technologies and startups working to change the energy industry,” said Nathan Frost, vice-president of new business and customer solutions at Dominion Energy.
Through the pilot, LōD will work directly with Dominion Energy to demonstrate how AI inference workloads can respond to changing grid conditions while maintaining the service standards required by data centre operators and their customers.