[noosphr]

There isn't a battery in the world big enough to provide enough power for data enter if this size.

Some batteries in this case is a bit like saying some water about the Pacific ocean.

[konschubert]

A big AI data center uses about 1 GWh of power each night.

A large battery storage site is about 500MWh.

So this is totally doable and it’s also going to be economical as soon as the US has built enough LNG export capacity.

[gnabgib]

A medium AI data center uses 1GWh.. per hour.. 10-14GWh overnight (the shoulders aren't strong solar producers). Google 1GW (India), Meta 2GW (Louisiana), Meta 1GW (Texas), Stargate 1GW (UAE), Tsukuba 1GW (Japan), Gangwon Hyperscaler 1GW (South Korea), Teesside AI 6GW (UK).

https://constructionreviewonline.com/top-5-largest-data-cent...

[konschubert]

Hi,

I think that's a fair point, I underestimated the power needs.

For a 1GW data center, the economical case is probably to build about 2 GWp of solar, plus a 5GWh battery or so.

That is not unrealistic:

https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/masdar-and-consortium-par...

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/28/catl-secures-worlds-l...

On a sunny day, that will let you to power the data center fully from solar for most of the day, and partially through the night.

Obviously you need ~1GW of gas turbine capacity as well, for the non-so-sunny-days, so the economic case for solar here is dependent on the fuel price.

[noosphr]

That's a big data enter from last decade. Today big data enters use 4GWh power in winter. So only 8 of them.

[konschubert]

4GWh of power in what time frame?

Either way, in winter you’ll need the gas turbines, I didn’t claim otherwise.

[vrighter]

so, half an hour's worth?

[nicoburns]

The Pacific Ocean is a bit of an exageration here.

There isn't a single battery this big today, but if batteries continue following the exponential growth curve they've been on then there probably will be in the next decade or so (if not sooner).

[noosphr]

There's a bit of a difference between 'some batteries' and at least five times the size of the largest battery ever build.

[nicoburns]

There is, and "some batteries" is an under count, however:

- The ratio between "some water" and "the pacific ocean" is a lot higher than 5

- On an exponential growth curve, a factor of 5 isn't all that much.

This probably isn't feasible for a data center being built today (although they could build solar to at least reduce their fossil fuel power generation needs during the day). But it probably will be for data centers being built in 5-10 years time.

Basically it's important to differentiate between "we can't quite do this yet" and "we'll likely never be able to do this". And powering a data center with rewnewables+batteries is definitely in the former category.

[konschubert]

You will always use gas for cloudy days or maybe in winter. I didn’t claim solar should be the sole source of power.