The data industry had been notifying since 2018: Spain had “a unique opportunity” to put foot in the digital infrastructure business. Many trends pointed to it, from the need to diversify the congested information routes of northern Europe, through their strategic position to connect emerging markets in Latin America and Africa, to political consensus to facilitate this type of investment. Along the way, artificial intelligence joined, a guest that further increased the attractiveness of Spain due to its ability to satisfy with renewable the enormous energy voracity of this technology.
What seven years ago was an opportunity, today is a reality. Spain has achieved gigantic investments to become a regional pole for data centers and submarine cables and be an important intersection on the world information highway. Technological giants, companies of the second step and even external actors such as Blackstone have arrived, who have seen the opportunity to exploit the privileged Spanish situation. In Aragon alone, an investment of about 47,000 million euros has been committed since 2024, according to a study by the Basilio Paraíso Foundation presented on Tuesday.
A dilemma that has forced the government to raise caution so as not to die of success, recognizing that a “bubble” has been generated with the data centers. This has been qualified several times Sara Aagesen, third vice president and minister for the ecological transition. His department is in charge of approveing the energy requests of each new data center and observes how the pile of folders grows without stopping. The network connection requests for new demands in the current planning (2025-2030) “have multiplied by 80” with respect to the previous planning (2021-2026), expose Eldiario.es sources of the Aagesen team.
Many of these requests arrive in addition to companies that process them in several different locations, with the aim of later staying with the most advantageous option. From the sector they explain to this medium that it is a way of counteracting the deadlines of several years that Red Electrica manages to grant energy to these facilities, covering their backs before a possible refusal to connect the chosen plot.
“The amount of projects that have arrived is huge. Zero to a great universe. We are going to measure them to analyze which are the best, also for the territory,” said the minister, who has prepared a package of specific measures to control the situation.
Transparency in consumption and impact on the territory
Ecological transition opened a public consultation at the beginning of August a Royal Decree project to regulate the data centers sector. The text forces these infrastructure to be more transparent with their energy and water consumption, two of the most sensitive factors for its implementation. In the case of electricity, they must detail not only how much energy they need, but also which part of it comes from renewable sources and what measures apply to improve its efficiency, a key point in the face of tensions that are already glimpsed in network planning.
Regarding water, operators will have to inform the volume destined for refrigeration and justify their use based on local availability, given that many projects are located in areas with water stress. The sector repeats by active and passive that their water consumption figures have exaggerated, although companies avoid openly communicate what their real expense is. In the Basilio Paraíso Foundation report it is notified that the consumption of new infrastructure can exceed 10% of what all Aragon drinks.
The draft also includes the obligation to prepare periodic reports on the impact of each data center in the territory and to present integration plans that guarantee their medium -term sustainability.
It is a package of rules that will affect all of Spain but will have special relevance in Madrid and Aragon. They are the communities that concentrate the majority of new applications, based on an unwritten law of the digital industry that dictates that the data attracts between them. The capital, for its services to citizens and companies; And Aragon, thanks to the huge farms of servers that build Amazon and Microsoft, are the poles around those who are flourishing these new infrastructure, with special mention to Talavera de la Reina and the megacero of target data, which is grouping around it to other companies in the sector.
Belligerence in Madrid and tranquility in Aragon
The presidents of the two regions governed by the PP have responded differently to the Royal Decree project. The president of the Community of Madrid has been left alone in her complaint to the regulatory package proposed by the Aagnesen team, ensuring that new standards are an attack on community development. “That Madrid has opted for data centers? Wait, what are we going …” published in X Isabel Díaz Ayuso together with the capture of news that reported on the public consultation of the Royal Decree.
It is a criticism that has been repeating for months to the government's policy to increase caution in the licenses of the data centers. “They are cutting energy and water,” he said in his closing speech of 2024. “What else does Madrid strongly? Data centers. Well, it cuts our energy, begins to restrict the water, so that we have no possibility of developing,” he said in an interview with Ana Rosa Quintana, referring to Pedro Sánchez.
Jorge Azcón, on the other hand, has transmitted tranquility in relation to the new norms. “That they ask for more transparency is positive. The almost totality of what the Royal Decree is completed by the data centers that are promoted in Aragon,” said the president of the Board on Wednesday, which will present suggestions to improve the text. “The allegations that the Aragon government will present will improve. I am convinced that projects in Aragon not only meet, but also improve quality standards,” he emphasized.
The employer also reduces the tension
Spaindc, the employer of data centers in Spain, has also avoided making an amendment to all of the new standards. “There is a part that has to do with the transparency of the data. And we will benefit us a lot because it helps us destroy many mantras that exist about the consumption of the data centers,” says Eldiario.es Begoña Villacís, executive director of the association. “The Spanish data centers will be very well stopped with respect to Europeans, especially in the issue of water, because practically all are closed circuit,” he emphasizes.
However, not all measures liked in the sector. One of the factors that generate more doubts is the requirement included in the Royal Decree to take advantage of the residual heat produced by the data centers. The standard forces the facilities that consume more than 1 MW (a small scale, for the developments that are taking place in Spain) to necessarily find an application for that heat, either for air conditioning services or other uses of neighborhoods, municipalities or nearby industries.
From Spaindc they emphasize that all companies are open to take advantage of that heat and there are already pilot projects to do so, but they believe that turning it into obligation is counterproductive. Many of the small municipalities in which they are installed, allege, would not have the capacity to manage such a project, which would complicate the bureaucratic process very much due to a factor such as the heat that is secondary in the operation of the data centers.
Finally, in line with the main political claim of the sector, they ask to expedite the procedures for access to energy. It is a battle in which they have won Azcón as an ally. “Before the August holidays I spoke with the vice president Aagesen and made the concern of Aragon in terms of the investments of Electric Do, ”he said in his Wednesday's speech.
