A data center housing 2,000 GPUs is now successfully run with off-the-grid power using solar panels and repurposed batteries. According to Bloomberg, the site is powered by solar panels that generate at least 12 megawatts of power and backed up by reused EV batteries with up to 63 megawatt-hours of capacity. This should be sufficient power for approximately 10,000 average U.S. homes, with the batteries providing power for over five hours. 2,000 GPUs have an estimated power draw of about four megawatts, so the on-site battery capacity should be enough for around 15 hours.
The company behind this project is Redwood Materials, which was founded by JB Straubel, one of the people behind Tesla. Redwood’s main business is battery recycling, and it has been focusing on getting battery materials from old EV modules that are no longer useful for transportation and have since been disposed of. But even though these batteries have already reached their end-of-life, Redwood discovered that they still retain about 50% of their capacity. This meant that they can be reused for other purposes that do not require high performance, such as driving an electric car.
