It's going to happen anyway for at least a large portion of every day simply because it's cheaper. Electricity is a sizable chunk of the cost to operate a datacenter and at least while the sun is up, solar is significantly cheaper than any other energy source. Grid scale battery overnights is cheaper but less so obviously.

You don't need climate pledges when the thing you're pledging to do saves you substantial amounts of money, and we really don't need quite so much climate moralizing when now the transition to carbon free electricity seems obvious, inevitable, and imminent because of direct immediate cost.

Now the question is just how can we accelerate this a little without creating false economies or distorting the market too much, just a small incentive here and penalty there along with funding for big projects to make them happen earlier.

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p1mrx 3 days ago | parent [-]

> It's going to happen anyway for at least a large portion of every day simply because it's cheaper.

That's precisely why a 24/7 goal matters. Energy is already cheap and clean for a large portion of the day, but covering the rest of the day will require significant investment.

	▲	colechristensen 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The reason electricity is cheap at night is that non-variable sources have fixed cost and the capacity is going wasted when unused. Solar having the daily peak is going to invert this so nighttime electricity is going to get considerably more expensive. Solar maximum is going to be the cheapest electricity of the day. There are a few residential utilities in Australia which give users free electricity for 3 hours a day to encourage users to divert their usage to that period. Widespread solar deployment significantly changes the electricity market. Further deployment is going to push fossil plants to charge higher rates when they're needed to the point where supply outstrips demand and it becomes cheaper to shut down a plant which will further increase overnight prices.