President Donald Trump’s stated desire to build data centers while lowering utility bills is butting up against the costly realities of an outdated electric grid.
A new study, however, points to one solution: building data centers in rural areas where solar energy is already flourishing.
Trump has done his best to weaken the renewable energy market. But California has continued to see a massive growth in solar power — so much, in fact, that its grid has not kept up.
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Traffic jams on transmission lines mean that some power produced in the Central Valley doesn’t reach the cities where it’s needed. So researchers at the University of Pennsylvania considered whether data centers could sop up that extra power.
