Aragon has always served as a great battery for the rest of the country, sending gigawatts to the industrial centers of Catalonia or the Basque Country, but now the script has changed. The community now has a “problem” that many would envy: it produces so much energy that it has attracted those who need it most. As if it were a magnet, the technological giants have landed in the Ebro valley to convert the region in what The Country already calls “Spanish Virginia”, in reference to the North American state with the highest concentration of data centers in the world.
The x-ray of a bittersweet record. To understand the magnitude of the change, you have to look at the counter. According to the data collected by The Aragon Newspaperthe community once again broke its historical record for electricity production in 2025, reaching 22,365 gigawatt hours (GWh), 2.1% more than the previous year. However, this milestone hides an important small print: the record was not achieved thanks to the wind or the sun, since these fell by 4.8% due to the drought (which sank the hydraulics by 19.1%) and a less windy year.
Here comes the bittersweet part, to compensate for the green decline and cover the gap left after the great blackout in April, the gas combined cycles increased their activity by 112.2%. But the data that really confirms the change of era is not how much is produced, but how much is spent. While electricity demand in Spain grew by a modest 2.7%, in Aragon internal consumption shot up by 7.1%, a figure that the provincial media describes as “true structural change” and that it attributes directly to the takeoff of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) complexes in Villanueva de Gállego, El Burgo and Huesca.
The rain of millions (and megawatts) This energetic appetite is no coincidence; It is the fuel for an unprecedented investment. As we have explained in Xatakathe autonomous government has given the green light to the expansion of AWS, which contemplates an investment of 15.7 billion euros in a ten-year plan. It is not about building isolated ships, but about creating an “AWS Region” (Europe Spain), a system of eight campuses interconnected by fiber optics that function as a single operational unit protected against failures.
But it’s not all servers and algorithms in the cloud. From the Herald have detailed that Amazon will not only save data, but will also build a server recycling factory in Aragon. With an additional investment of 200 million euros, this circular economy plant promises to create up to 1,100 direct jobs, a balloon of labor oxygen that goes beyond highly qualified technical profiles.
Jam in the network and flight to Teruel. The Aragonese paradox is that, although there is plenty of energy, there are no “roads” to transport it. The electrical distribution network in the community is at its limit, with an occupancy of 94.3%well above the national average. There is electricity, but there are no free outlets for so much industry.
This saturation in the Zaragoza logistics hub has caused an unexpected movement towards “emptied Spain.” As my colleague in XatakaGiven the impossibility of connecting in the capital, AWS has decided to take one of its new centers to La Puebla de Híjar, a town in Teruel with barely 900 inhabitants. The choice is strategic: the N-232 highway acts as the backbone and, there, the electrical grid has the capacity (100 MW guaranteed) to feed the beast.
Side B: water and territory. Every revolution has a cost, and in this case it is measured in natural resources. Digital euphoria collides with the physical reality of a dry land. The alarms went off, as reported The Countrywhen Amazon requested to expand its water concession by 48% to cool its servers. The conflict is palpable on the ground, the Gaén irrigation community in Teruel keeps negotiations blockedrefusing to give up water from the Ebro if that compromises the agricultural future of the area.
The most critical view brings it Ecologists in Action. Its renewable viewer warns that the deployment is not harmless: there are more than 12,000 hectares of authorized solar plants and thousands of wind turbines in the pipeline. The organization warns that, if all the data center projects in the portfolio are approved, their electrical consumption could reach five times the current demand of the entire community, turning the Aragonese landscape into a continuous industrial estate and drying up its water resources.
The new balance. Aragón closed the year 2025 at a fascinating crossroads. How to conclude The Aragon Newspaperthe community continues to be surplus, but less and less. Electricity exports have fallen from 56% to 52% in just one year.
The region has achieved what seemed impossible: from being a mere service station to becoming the engine of the digital economy. But the question that remains in the air, between million-dollar investment figures and environmental warnings, is whether the electricity grid and water resources will withstand the weight of being Europe’s hard drive.
Image | freepik
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