Repurposed aircraft engines are powering AI data centers amid delays for grid hookups. They’re an efficient and innovative solution to bridging the power gap.
Repurposed aircraft engines are powering AI data centers amid delays for grid hookups. They’re an efficient and innovative solution to bridging the power gap.
Some of the biggest data centers are pushing 100 megawatts. When I worked on the solar farms out west, an entire industrial site would be around 200-400 megawatts.
For context, those sites would be powering entire towns. The Blythe mesa solar project is over 2,000 acres of solar panels. It’s bigger than the town. Quite a bit of Las Vegas is ran on solar.
It’s not quite as simple as just sticking panels on the roof of the data center. It also needs to be reliable enough to store the energy so it’s available at night when the sun is down. This is still one of solar’s biggest hurdles.