Reading a power price: what $/kWh really tells you
An all-in rate is the start of the conversation, not the end. How we look at energy cost for a compute site — and why negative prices can be an opportunity.
Belisari · September 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Power is one of the largest operating costs for any compute site, so the rate on a term sheet gets a lot of attention. Recent Belisari transactions have priced between roughly $0.035 and $0.042 per kWh, and the average across sites on our platform is $0.0442. But a single number hides a lot.
Fixed, indexed, or somewhere in between
A fixed rate buys certainty. An indexed rate follows the wholesale market — the locational marginal price, or LMP — and can be cheaper on average while exposing the operator to price spikes. Many deals blend the two.
When prices go negative
In markets with a lot of wind and solar, wholesale prices can fall below zero when supply outruns demand and transmission is constrained. For a load that can flex, those hours are an opportunity: consuming power when the grid has too much of it can lower costs and support grid stability at the same time.
Curtailment and flexibility
Some sites come with the ability — or the obligation — to reduce load during grid stress. For flexible workloads that can be valuable; for latency-sensitive inference it may be a dealbreaker. Knowing which kind of load you run shapes which sites make sense.
How we underwrite it
Before a site is contracted, we model the rate structure, wholesale price exposure, and curtailment terms against the operator's actual load profile. The goal is a cost of power an operator can plan a business around — not just a low headline number.
