Aurore Gutkowski resigned as chair of NexaSpan Pacific at 08:00 on Monday, the same morning researchers published findings that the company’s data hall on Samoa’s Upolu island could act like a 9-megawatt-hour “virtual battery”. The study says shifting flexible computing tasks into sunny hours could absorb 63% of solar power otherwise curtailed during the trial.
The company’s chief executive, Jacques Renaud, said he would forgo his WST 420,000 annual bonus (about €139,000) and match it with company funds for two community battery projects. The surprise departures put the spotlight on a study suggesting that a facility often seen as a heavy electricity user could help a small island make better use of renewable power.
The study’s solar shift
Researchers at the Moana Institute for Energy Systems analysed 18 months of electricity readings and controlled tests at NexaSpan’s 3.6-megawatt facility near Apia. They found that software updates, backups and other tasks that need not run instantly could be moved out of the evening peak and into the middle of the day, when solar panels produce more power.
Across 16 days when the grid operator curtailed solar generation, the data hall could have absorbed 63% of the unused electricity by shifting those jobs, the study estimates. The researchers calculated that up to 9 megawatt-hours of demand could move from evening to midday; no electricity is stored, and the servers do not send power back to the grid.
We found a battery made of schedules, not cells — and it is already sitting on the island.
Mélanie Amorim, study lead
Gutkowski told the Plausible Post she had planned to step down before the paper was released, but asked the board to bring her departure forward so a successor could lead contract talks with the grid operator. “The next phase needs someone who can make the study real, not just celebrate it,” she said. The company gave no name for her replacement.
Renaud said the bonus decision was voluntary and unrelated to the resignation. He said the company would put its own matching funds into two battery projects for public buildings, with the first site to be chosen with local officials by December. The combined contribution was not yet final, he said.
A practical test for islands
Upolu is Samoa’s most populous island, and its electricity supply mixes solar, hydro and imported fuel. Moving server work does not remove the need for round-the-clock power, but grid planner Stig Holmberg-Holm said the timing could help. “If a big customer takes more power when the sun is strong and less at the evening peak, that gives us room to connect more solar,” he said.
The study’s authors caution that their figures depend on the centre keeping flexible computing jobs available and on the grid operator sharing live supply data. NexaSpan and the operator will run a six-month trial from January, tracking how much work shifts, what it costs and whether the changes affect customers. Gutkowski said she would remain available during the handover, but would not stay on the board.
