Soluna - One of the coolest companies you've never heard of
It seem seems like is are a proliferation of new projects related to both crypto and renewable energy. But one company has a really neat way of combining both.
While renewables are incredible and absolutely the way of the future, one of their biggest downside is intermittent power. When the wind stops blowing or a cloud passes, the energy production stops. This is a problem because the grid works best with constant electricity. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear all provide a continuous, predictable stream of electricity. And, if the grid balance supply and demand, not being able to forecast supply means makes that balancing act that much tougher.
Enter Soluna. They use the intermittent power to deploy data centers. Now most data centers also need a continuous use of electricity. However, there are some unique applications like mining for math-based currency (AKA crypto) or providing for computing intensive machine learning tasks. What's great about these tasks is that they dont need continuous power. In other words, their needs perfectly match the output of the renewables.
Essentially Soluna is building data centers to deploy next to renewable projects to act as batteries. However, instead of storing that electricity chemically, they use it to power data centers. What a clever idea.
And, if the grid balance supply and demand, not being able to forecast supply makes that balancing act that much tougher.
Renewables Can Now Do A Lot More
Even though I want to see solar and wind everywhere, I also recognize the need to make the numbers work. In truth, many renewable projects don't get built because the economics don't pencil out. Since you can't sell all your power into the grid at any time you want, many projects don't make it to the light of day.
This is why Soluna is game changing. They allow for the growth of more renewables not just from a technicaly perspective, but from an economic one. That's HUGE!
We'll be keeping an eye on their progress.