7 Minutes
Unlocking the Potential of Stranded Renewable Energy
Across the world, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are expanding at record pace, feeding power grids with cleaner electricity. However, a surprising amount of that green energy never reaches consumers. Instead, it is “stranded” – generated but unused, often due to transmission bottlenecks or mismatches between production and local demand. As data centers drive surging energy requirements for artificial intelligence and cloud computing, innovative companies are turning this wasted resource into an engine for sustainable growth.
What Is Stranded Renewable Energy?
Stranded renewable energy refers to electricity generated by sources like wind turbines or solar panels that cannot be delivered to the grid due to operational limits, inadequate infrastructure, or lack of nearby demand. During periods when renewable resources are abundant—think blustery days or sunny afternoons—many power grids become saturated. Transmission lines, some decades old, are unable to carry all the generated electricity to users, especially in remote areas where renewable plants tend to be built. As a result, grid operators often request these plants to curtail, or intentionally cut back, production, letting vast amounts of clean energy go to waste.
According to Soluna, a leading green data center developer, as much as 30 to 40 percent of renewable energy at certain sites is not utilized. In the United States alone, a Soluna analysis found that nearly 15 terawatt hours of wind and solar electricity were curtailed in 2021—a loss equivalent to powering over one million homes for a full year.
The Growing Demand for Reliable, Sustainable Data Centers
The rise of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and cryptocurrency mining has sent demand for high-performance computing and data storage skyrocketing. Data centers, the backbone infrastructure for cloud services and online platforms, are now among the fastest-growing sectors of electricity consumption worldwide. According to industry research commissioned by Bloom Energy, by 2030, over one-third of new data centers are expected to provide their own onsite power, seeking energy independence and resilience. By 2035, this figure could approach half of all facilities globally.
Power Access as a Key Decision Driver
“The grid cannot keep up with the rapid growth of AI-driven technologies,” explains Aman Joshi, Chief Commercial Officer at Bloom Energy. “Access to reliable power now plays the most significant role in choosing data center locations.” As utilities face a one to two-year lag between developer demand and grid upgrades, many operators are bypassing traditional connections by sourcing power directly from renewable projects that would otherwise be forced to curtail output.
Soluna’s Solution: Turning Wasted Energy Into Sustainable Compute
Headquartered in Albany, New York, Soluna is at the forefront of the movement to utilize curtailed green energy. CEO John Belizaire highlights the paradox: when traveling across windy countrysides, not all turbines spin, even in favorable conditions. “It’s not because they’re broken,” he notes. “It’s because they’ve been turned off—there’s nowhere for their power to go.” Soluna’s approach co-locates data centers directly alongside wind, solar, or hydro plants. The company then negotiates power purchase agreements (PPAs) to buy excess or stranded electricity—power that the grid cannot absorb or that the power producer cannot sell elsewhere.
Flexible and Resilient Operations
Data centers typically require immense, steady electricity flows. Soluna’s facilities, however, are engineered to be “flexible load” consumers: they can ramp up computational work when surplus renewables are available and dial down operations during grid peaks, essentially acting as a buffer that stabilizes electricity supply and demand. As Belizaire puts it, “We’ve become almost like a battery. Computing is sometimes an even better battery than physical energy storage systems.”
Real-World Deployments and Impact
Soluna’s portfolio includes facilities in Kentucky and Texas, totaling over 120 megawatts of installed capacity, with plans for another 800 megawatts in development. In West Texas, where abundant wind energy frequently goes unsold due to limited transmission capacity, the company locates its data centers in proximity to generation sites, drawing directly from power that would otherwise be wasted.
Other firms, such as IREN, operate similarly. IREN has built a massive, 7.5-gigawatt center in Childress, Texas, and a 1.4-gigawatt site in Sweetwater—both optimized for cryptocurrency mining and AI applications. According to IREN executive Kent Draper, the firm takes advantage of oversupply periods on the state grid’s wholesale market, shutting down power-hungry computers when prices spike and ramping up when renewables are abundant.
A Global Challenge of Curtailment
The issue is far from unique to the United States. Wind and solar curtailment is on the rise in regions as diverse as California, Oklahoma, Northern Ireland, Germany, Portugal, and Australia. In California alone, the grid operator curtailed a record 3.4 million megawatt hours of renewable output in 2024—a 29 percent jump from the previous year. Worldwide, wherever large-scale clean energy projects aren’t matched with sufficient transmission or flexible demand, stranded energy becomes inevitable.
Innovations in Sourcing and Energy Contracts
Soluna’s behind-the-meter strategy allows it to source affordable power in several ways. The company can buy electricity directly from renewable plants at low, fixed rates—since this energy would otherwise go unused, prices are highly competitive. Alternatively, Soluna can pay for energy that would have been sold to the grid (so-called “subtractive energy”), supporting plant economics and maximizing clean output. As a last resort, the company may purchase electricity directly from the grid, though this introduces a mix of renewable and fossil-fuel-sourced power.
Contract terms have shifted as well: where five-year agreements were once common, long-term ten-year partnerships are now the norm, providing greater stability for both data center and energy producer.
Integrating Technology: Data Centers as Grid Stabilizers
The intermittent nature of renewables—energy coming and going with the weather—complicates grid reliability. Traditional solutions, like building out new transmission lines or deploying large-scale battery storage, are vital but slow and costly. Flexible data centers offer an immediate and scalable solution. By automatically modulating their vast compute loads, such facilities can act as “virtual batteries”—absorbing excess supply and releasing capacity when the grid is constrained. This symbiotic relationship supports renewable adoption and strengthens grid resilience as the world transitions to cleaner energy systems.
Key Implications and Future Prospects
By converting stranded renewable energy into useful digital computation, the data center sector is demonstrating a powerful model for sustainable industrial growth. With upward of 75 percent of their power sourced from green energy in some deployments, companies like Soluna are setting benchmarks for environmental leadership and operational efficiency. Furthermore, as battery technology advances and policy accelerates grid modernization, flexible demand solutions will become increasingly critical in meeting the dual challenges of decarbonization and digital transformation.
Beyond immediate carbon reductions, these efforts have broader significance: enabling the full utilization of renewable investments, driving economic benefits for both power producers and consumers, and positioning clean energy as the backbone of the next-generation digital economy. As Belizaire notes, “Anywhere there’s large-scale renewable growth, curtailment—and the opportunity to turn it into value—will be found.”
Conclusion
As data infrastructure becomes indispensable for science, business, and society, its energy footprint must be as sustainable as its technological ambitions are vast. Harnessing stranded wind, solar, and hydroelectric power not only cuts waste but also bridges the gap between renewable potential and practical, real-world application. Innovative strategies, such as those pioneered by Soluna and its peers, show a viable pathway to a digital future powered by clean, flexible, and resilient energy systems. In doing so, they offer a blueprint for tackling one of the most pressing challenges—and opportunities—in the global energy transition.
Source: arstechnica
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