Between January and September, our blended cost per kilowatt-hour across European sites went from €0.11 to €0.34. Power is roughly 19% of our cost per instance, so that is not a rounding error.
What we could have done
Our terms of service allow a surcharge on existing terms with thirty days' notice. Several hosts did exactly that, and it was within their rights. We did not, because a term you can reprice is not a term — it is a monthly plan with extra steps.
What it cost
Two quarters at a loss: €412,000 in Q3 and €338,000 in Q4. We covered it out of retained profit, delayed the Helsinki expansion by seven months, and cancelled a hardware refresh in Dublin. Nobody was laid off and no term was repriced.
What changed structurally
- 01Power is now hedged eighteen months forward at four of the six largest sites.
- 02New sites are chosen partly on grid mix. Helsinki, Reykjavík and Stockholm exist for this reason as much as for latency.
- 03The waste heat from Helsinki feeds a district heating loop, which offsets part of the bill.
The point of a fixed term is that it is fixed for the customer, not for whichever party the market favours.