THE DATA CENTRE INTERVIEW
Curtailed renewable energy offers untapped opportunity One response to that gap lies in a resource that is currently being wasted at scale. Curtailment – the process by which renewable energy assets generate more power than the grid can absorb – results in significant volumes of electricity being produced and then discarded. In the US, curtailment levels at wind and solar assets continue to rise annually, a figure that grows as more renewable capacity comes online without corresponding grid upgrades.
John sees this as one of the most underutilised opportunities in energy infrastructure today.
“ AI and HPC workloads are well-suited to absorb this energy,” he says.“ They are computationally intensive, they can operate at scale, and certain workloads can be structured with enough flexibility to ramp up when power is available and modulate when it is not. That flexibility is exactly what curtailed energy needs.”
The economic logic reinforces the operational case. Curtailed energy is often available at low cost precisely because it would otherwise go to waste, creating what John describes as“ a structural cost advantage for computing infrastructure built to absorb it”. At the same time, the renewable project itself benefits, converting what was a sunk cost into revenue without requiring additional generation capacity.
“ This is not a theoretical model,” he adds.“ Soluna has been operating this way for several years, and the fundamentals hold.”
“ When a utility faces a demand surge or supply emergency, our data centres can respond to that signal and modulate down, freeing power back to support grid stability”
John Belizaire CEO Soluna
24 May 2026