Soluna Computing Announces Acquisition by MTI to Create Clean Computing Juggernaut

Combined Company Solves Top Revenue Challenge for Wind, Solar Farm Owners: Wasted Renewable Energy Production

Mechanical Technology, Inc (“MTI”) and Soluna Computing, Inc. (“SCI”) announced that they have signed a definitive agreement whereby MTI will acquire SCI. Soluna will buy excess energy from wind and solar farms to power data centers specializing in performing batchable computing, such as cryptocurrency mining. The transaction will launch Soluna into the new and rapidly growing “green” sector within the power-hungry data center industry. Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will be renamed Soluna Holdings (“Soluna” or “the company”).

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Many renewable energy producers lose up to 30 percent of the energy they could produce because the power grid is not flexible enough to absorb it. Soluna will offer on-site data centers that are modular and capable of scaling up to buy every excess megawatt of renewable energy.

Soluna develops scalable data centers from concept to commercial operation that can buy excess energy from solar and wind farms with a low-risk, low-friction process that takes as little as six months. Rapid implementation allows Soluna to scale its approach globally from megawatts to gigawatts.

The combined company will have a development pipeline of 350MW, with 50MW expected to be operational by the end of 2021 and another 50MW by the end of the second quarter of 2022. By the end of 2022, Soluna expects to have two-thirds of its current pipeline energized and operational.

Meeting An Exploding Market

Soluna’s solution meets the exploding demand for computing power, particularly forms of computing that are “batchable,” which can be interrupted. Soluna can offer customers batchable computing with rates as low as 25% of what they pay current service providers such as AWS. Batchable computing is a method of running high-volume, repetitive data processes. Batchable computing data centers require far less expensive infrastructure redundancies compared to data centers serving customers that must be always on. The demand for batchable computing – such as cryptocurrency mining, scientific computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning – now collectively represents $60B a year, 19 percent of the entire data center sector.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts wind and solar production will produce 225 terawatt-hours (TWh) of wasted power by 2030. That’s more than the 205 TWh of electricity consumed by all data centers in 2018. The surging growth in data centers and their corresponding demand for power comes as major institutional investors, governments and corporate ESG goals drive greater reliance on renewable energy.

“Our company will buy every megawatt of excess energy from wind and solar farms and convert it to revenue for the owners of these facilities,” said Soluna Computing CEO John Belizaire. “With this simple solution to one of asset owners’ biggest operational challenges, we plan to more than double our pipeline by the end of 2022 to more than 700 MW.”

This transaction provides the combined companies with greater access to capital markets and allows them to scale their renewable energy-powered data center solution more quickly and efficiently.

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Soluna Holdings will absorb all SCI assets, as well as those of MTI subsidiary EcoChain, bringing the combined total to 350MW, but it does not include the Harmattan Wind farm in Morocco, which is an asset of Harmattan Energy, Ltd. (formerly called Soluna Technologies, Ltd.). Soluna Holdings will also directly retain Soluna’s top-tier technical team, which brings expertise in project development, energy markets, project finance and computing technology.

This transaction places the combined company into the cryptocurrency mining industry’s large scale peer group, based on its development pipeline.

“We’re excited about this acquisition and the opportunities it brings for Soluna to continue helping renewable power producers sell every megawatt of energy,” said John Belizaire, Soluna Computing CEO. “What we’re offering now will be an industry standard within three years. It’s up to the first movers in the power business to seize this revenue advantage.”

“With the surge of demand for batchable computing on the horizon, this transaction puts MTI in a strong position to provide significant value for investors,” said Michael Toporek, MTI CEO. “The future of computing is renewable energy, and this acquisition demonstrates my belief in both the sustainability and the profitability of this new frontier.”

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