Europe finds itself at a crossroads. If you listen to the CEO of Mistral, you should start investing big to stop being the technological vassal of the United States. That implies investing and part of that investment is in data centers. But American Big Tech is also moving and, if in the US they find frontal opposition to the construction of data centersthey move and there are countries like Spain that are favorite destinations.
But there’s a huge problem: it’s not so much about money as it is about energy. And European macroplans are colliding with the reality of the electricity grid.
Full speed ahead. The United States has the most brutal data centers on the planetbut Europe has a plan to arm itself and achieve that technological sovereignty. The plan goes through energy thanks to geothermal energy and, above all, renewables. Europe is a power in this and Spain has already shown its plumage to attract European and Big Tech data centers. esteem that there are 5,400 in the US and 3,400 in Europe, and Europe wants to close the gap.
There is a very small problem: renewables are not enough to satisfy the voracity of data centers. We are constantly seeing it: data centers need constant power, but when they enter intense computing phases, the expense is so high that they need energy spikes that renewables cannot satisfy. That’s where they come into play. nuclear, gas and even coaland a Europe that cannot play that due to environmental policies is where it has its weak point.
Spain. There are several points to analyze. As we say, Spain is one of the countries that is presenting itself as one of the best assets to host data centers. Aragon, specifically, is a community that is pushing hard in this direction and serves as an example. AWS is going to put some gigantic data centers in the community, adding more than 10,800 GWh of energy per year. To contextualize, it is more than all the current electricity consumption of the community.
But it is not only happening in Aragon and the fear is that the saturated Spanish electricity grid will now have to deal with those data centers that they can collapse the network. He blackout ghost it’s still there and it’s already been warned in the Official State Gazette that an increase in installations that are not capable of withstanding voltage dips pose a very high risk for the network.
the hunger games. Because first the principles of agreement came and, now, the different EU countries are realizing that, perhaps, it is not such a good idea. One of the most recent cases is that of Energinet, the state operator of Denmark’s electricity grid, which, in March, suspended all new large-scale connection agreements by receiving requests that would reach 60 GW, with 14 GW of them being for data centers.
As in the case of Aragon, it must be put in context and, according to According to CNBC, the country’s maximum demand is 7 GW, so that total of 60 GW exceeds the country’s consumption almost nine times. It is not about canceling plans, but about an extension until we discuss what to do with that demand, but there are already those who point out that the extension cannot be ruled out because, simply, the country’s network may not be prepared.
Estimation of increased energy demand for data centers
FLAP-D. But they are not the only ones. Amsterdam, London or Dublin can no longer absorb the brutal energy consumption of artificial intelligence and the technology industry has set his eyes on the northern countries (in which wind energy is the protagonist) and in those in the south (with solar as a guest star). They are three important names because they are part of the FLAP-D, the conglomerate of Flankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin that, historically, have been the dominators of the data center sector.
Because these facilities have existed before the arrival of AI, but with the conversion to computing centers for AI is when their consumption has decreased. shot and when these metropolitan areas cannot meet demand. Those needs are so exaggerated It is estimated that data centers accounted for almost 80% of Dublin’s electricity consumption, forcing Ireland to impose a de facto moratorium on new data centers in its capital until 2028.
braking. The situation, of course, is not the most promising for those who are building the AI infrastructure at the moment. The boss of SMIC, one of the Chinese companies that is leading the country’s technological transformation, pointed out a few weeks ago that the AI Big Tech companies are building all the infrastructure they will need over the next decade. in just one or two yearswhat is generating that plug in stock components worldwide.
But then there is the energy plug which, as we see, is not small. And, obviously, it also generates delays in supply. According to the calculationsa decade to connect the new facilities to the electrical grid. If Microsoft, or whoever, builds a data center by 2027, but can’t pull the plug until 2037, something is clearly wrong. What is clear is that regulators are going to look at these projects with a magnifying glass because there is a physical limit that is that energy and connection requests.
In fact, it is already recommended that before coming with a monstrous data center and then looking to see if there is a plug, construction plans take into account consumption and connection planning to national networks from the beginning. But there’s another problem: You can build a data center today that consumes x energy, but when you upgrade to more powerful platforms, those calculations may blow up. Either that… or self-powered data centers, as already stated made in Dublin.
In Xataka | Data centers are real “heaters”. And they are settling in regions as hot as Aragón
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