[myrmidon]

Hm... I'm still not really buying the "turn datacenter off during peak electricity demand" scenario at all, because the ratios just don't seem credible to me:

Assuming ~$10M of capex (to buy the datacenter) per MW of electrical power (required by the datacenter), and hardware that is obsolete after 5 years (or even 10!), turning that datacenter off for an hour just to save like ~50$/MWh (or whatever spot price is) seems extremely counterproductive, because your hardware running for that additional hour is worth multiple times that (you spent like >$100 per operating hour on the hardware alone assuming 10 year lifetime).

It seems much more attractive (and credible) to just install more batteries (or even a gas turbine), instead of chasing demand-side-regulation pretensions.

edit: thx for the link though, that is a very interesting study/data even if I disagree with that conclusion!