This week’s conversation is with Hanson Wood, chief development officer for solar developer RWE. Wood’s perspective felt crucial at a moment when the data center boom is leading to so much deal volume – even after the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act. So I reached out to his team to see if we could talk about how he’s evaluating all things Fight-related, including the impacts of the data center backlash on solar itself. The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.
How is solar finding opportunities in the data center development space? I know there’s conversations about speed-to-power and some deal volume, but help us get a better sense of the level of capacity being sought versus fossil or other forms of energy.
Great question. To contextualize, I think it just makes sense to talk about energy demand overall. Solar is filling the base of where the majority of load growth and generation is coming from and going to be served.
Over the last decade, the cost of solar has gone down dramatically. It’s become a very modular technology being deployed in a variety of locations. It can be deployed very quickly at low cost. It can ramp to meet short-term demand needs. And within the space of just energy demand, across utilities and large industrial data center companies, the reality is no single technology is going to be able to serve overall demand. Everything from solar to onshore wind and geothermal and other forms of flexible generation are needed.
What this speaks to is how our grid is pretty finite. We have to be able to mix and match a variety of products to be able to meet an ever-growing reliability need. To make it simple, I think solar’s going to serve the largest base of growing demand because it's cheap and it's available. But it’s not going to be the only technology. We need to be able to serve this load growth reliably. And we know this is going to require a diversity of technologies.
From a social license perspective, does solar power for a data center make it more acceptable for a community? Less acceptable? More friendly?
One thing I want to be clear about: I don’t develop data centers. So I’m looking at it through the same view many people in the industry and the public see it.
I think there’s manifold reasons why people have concerns about data centers, overall. I can’t speak for all of them. But what solar does address is, we don’t want to see large price spikes in the short term and solar can really help in that regard. It can provide near-term generation immediately in a lot of instances at one of the lowest costs in the market.
Whether the broader public makes that connection, it’s probably too early to see. There’s probably a lot of anxiety that has to be addressed by that [data center] community.
When it comes to the state of solar development, have the feelings around data center infrastructure we’ve seen in various places impacted solar projects?
Solar is more often in what we consider rural areas where there’s more of a conservative viewpoint generally.
Where I think we stand in the solar industry is that in the 2010s we were looked at as a one-off, and now what we see as the challenge is that as solar scales, communities are looking at the scale and potential of what solar will be bringing. A lot of the conversations we have with [them] are, is this changing the local character? How is this impacting our way of life?
And the way we try to approach that is to highlight a lot of the public benefits. Renewables are generating significant jobs, locally as well as through funding local services. Farmers setting aside land for renewables are also funding their farms and way of life. I’ve heard testimonials from farmers who’ve said they wouldn’t be able to continue on without the revenue from solar or BESS projects.
The broader community is concerned solar is displacing rural farming, but what we hear from rural landowners is that these projects are allowing them to keep their farms.
Most people when they start looking at renewables, they don’t make that connection. They’re primed to ask, what’s the downside here? But it’s nothing in terms of physical land while the economic value it brings is long-term. It’s 30 years — at a time when the American public is seeing lots of headwinds.
I know at a broader level, you’re addressing the conflicts in solar energy. Do you think the solar industry offers any lessons for the folks now trying to get data centers built?
Anyone who is building large infrastructure projects can’t ignore early community engagement. One of the things people should be thinking about as they’re developing projects is these things are going to be here 20, 30 years, right? When we develop those projects we are trying to build relationships in a sustainable fashion.
We really take into consideration the concerns we hear. Again, people are primed to see the downside in any development, and without that early engagement – genuinely – you risk whether other people come along and hear the benefits or feel like their voice mattered in the process of development.
