Soluna Holdings Inc. is seeking capital partners to back a series of data center projects purpose-built for AI workloads, and has tapped Northland Capital Markets as its financial advisor to lead the capital formation effort.

The company, known for marrying data centers with renewable energy generation, is now targeting the booming AI market with hybrid facilities that will pair high-performance computing with flexible bitcoin mining operations. Soluna’s move into AI comes amid a growing pipeline of renewable-powered data centers aimed at solving power curtailment issues plaguing wind and solar farms.

CEO John Belizaire said Soluna’s new AI projects will follow a unique model the company has spent years developing: locating data centers behind-the-meter at renewable facilities experiencing curtailment — the inability to monetize excess power due to grid constraints — and using software to dynamically balance power flows between the grid and on-site generation.

“What we’ve done really well is develop relationships with some of the largest renewable energy developers and asset owners out there, and that’s helped us to build a strong reputation and understanding of how to do this these types of data center projects,” he said. “But more importantly we’ve kind of become known for solving curtailment issues for those projects, so most of the time when people call us, they’re looking for a solution to a problem.”

Project Kati

The company’s new flagship AI-focused project is “Kati,” a 166 MW site in Texas that recently cleared the ERCOT planning phase. It will be split into two 83-MW sections: one for bitcoin hosting and the other for AI compute. Soluna is simultaneously raising capital for both components, with Northland helping to source infrastructure funds and data center operators for the AI side.

The total cost for the AI portion of Kati is projected at USD 800m, with equity requirements around USD 250m, depending on the mix of debt and credit quality of tenants. Belizaire said Soluna’s strategy is to form joint ventures with experienced AI data center operators who will bring capital, customer development, and operational expertise.

He added that the company is in talks with several “brand-name” infrastructure investors and expects to announce new strategic partnerships soon.

Project Kati is tied to the 273 MW Las Majadas wind farm owned by EDF Renewables and Masdar. The companies announced a PPA at the facility in May, 2024.

On the bitcoin side, Soluna maintains a long-standing relationship with Spring Lane Capital, which has backed previous projects and continues to evaluate new opportunities. Belizaire described these bitcoin operations as “the rubber band” that provides flexible load to complement the more demanding uptime requirements of AI compute.

Soluna’s broader project pipeline now includes around 20 projects totaling 2.6 GW, with eight of those — about 623 MW — already in the term sheet or PPA negotiation phase. Many are located in Texas and co-located with wind or solar farms owned by top-tier renewable developers.

“We’re seeing clustering now,” Belizaire said, adding that even though Soluna’s sites are around 100 MW – too small for many hyperscalers – the clustering of sites within a 100-mile radius starts to look like a campus-scale opportunity.

Announced projects include Kati and “Rosa,” a 187 MW project also in Texas. Two additional projects totaling 220 MW are expected to be announced shortly.

Energy parks

The structure of Soluna’s projects have been referred to as “energy parks” — data centers embedded within or adjacent to renewable energy plants and storage, drawing much of their power from on-site generation but with grid backup.

The company uses a custom orchestration platform to prioritize power distribution between co-located AI and bitcoin data centers. The system dynamically responds to real-time grid pricing and generation output to ensure five-nines reliability for AI tenants while flexing the bitcoin load to absorb excess or lower-priority power.

“When wind production is high, we can power both facilities,” Belizaire said. “When it’s low, we prioritize AI and shift bitcoin load to the grid.”

Soluna’s model is enabled by a novel ERCOT program called the Large Flexible Load (LFL) protocol, which allows developers to add significant load to existing generation assets outside of the traditional multi-year interconnection queue. By tying into existing substations at renewable sites, Soluna can accelerate project timelines and secure power faster than competitors, according to Belizaire.

Curtailment remains a growing issue in regions like Texas, where transmission bottlenecks and rapid renewable deployment have left gigawatts of clean energy unsold. Soluna’s data centers are structured to serve as anchor load for these facilities, helping them unlock production tax credits and stabilize financial performance.

Belizaire described scenarios where wind farms are forced to curtail 40% or more of their generation, undermining revenue and tax equity returns. By deploying 100 MW data centers that can consume this power, Soluna can transform loss-making projects into profitable ones.

In other words, the concept functions as a hedge, a monetization engine, and a decarbonization tool all rolled into one.

As Soluna transitions from a bitcoin-centric company to a broader platform for sustainable compute, Belizaire likens the company’s position to an oil developer sitting atop proven reserves, now showing it has the technology and team to extract value.

“This model is a very strategic asset,” he said. “We’ve demonstrated we could do it with crypto and as we start to demonstrate we can do it with other applications like AI or HPC, we’re showing we can draw capital into these things.”

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM US subscribers.

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