Inevitable Turning Wasted Renewable Power into AI Compute with Rune
Feb 17, 2026
William Layden, Co-founder and CEO of Rune, builds modular DC micro data centers that plug into solar and wind to turn stranded clean power into compute. He explains solar clipping and curtailment, why DC-to-DC architecture matters, starting with Bitcoin as a beachhead, and how modular units can rapidly deploy AI-scale compute at renewable sites.
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Modular DC Data Centers At The Source
- Rune builds 100 kW, truck-deployable modular data centers that plug directly into combiner boxes at solar and wind sites. These Relics use DC-to-DC power conversion to avoid AC grid conversion losses and enable rapid rollouts.
Hidden Power Loss: Solar Clipping
- Clipping occurs because solar arrays are oversized relative to inverters, spilling 5–10% of DC generation at peak. Rune taps combiner-box DC to capture that otherwise lost energy and convert it into compute value.
Curtailment: Grid Rejection Of Clean Power
- Curtailment is when the grid tells a generator not to export power, either for reliability or because prices collapse. That wasted generation often happens exactly when solar produces the most energy.