I felt the same way about the "tube with an air hockey table in it." But here I am fifteen years later eating crow as I take the hyperloop to Vegas.

It seems off at first glance but actually appears to work out if you do the math. You can model a solar panel as a flat, opaque rectangle. You can calculate power generation and equilibrium temperature for it based on surface area. If you require additional radiative surface area to achieve the desired equilibrium temperature you can place a flat triangle orthogonal to and behind the solar panel in its shadow.

Compute is "free" at that point because waste heat is coming out of the total energy flux which was already accounted for (because we modeled it as opaque).

Of course swapping out the equipment poses a bit of a challenge. The "helping hands" rate is entirely unaffordable and wait until you see this new DC's physical access policies. 0/10 would not rack with them again.