What requirements will data centers have to meet? The Spanish government and the promoters disagree on the new regulation

Tension between the Spanish government and companies looking to promote data centers in the State. This week, Pedro Sánchez's executive has initiated the procedures to approve a royal decree that will toughen the requirements that projects must meet to be realized. The Spanish executive published the full text this Thursday, after meeting yesterday with the main sector employers' associations, Spain DC and Ametic.

The Spanish government argues that data centers are "indispensable infrastructures in a modern economy," but it wants to be selective with projects. "Spain is in a position to choose the best data centers, those that bring more benefits with the least environmental impact," it assures.

For its part, and lacking in-depth study of the decree proposal, the two majority employers' associations in the sector – Ametic and Spain DC – warn that excessive bureaucracy can hinder projects and damage the State's positioning as a technological hub. These two, and other interested parties, will be able to submit amendments to the text until September 4.

Sources from Ametic have assured el ARA that they positively value that there is regulation, but they ask that it be based on European guidelines to avoid comparative disadvantage. They trust that the Spanish executive will incorporate their contributions into the final draft. In a statement, the entity has favorably highlighted that the government "is counting on the industry in the process of developing the future regulatory framework".

Along these lines, Spain DC has demanded that Spain not be in a "disadvantageous" position compared to other territories competing for the same investments. It has toughened its discourse, expressing "concern" about some of the positions of Pedro Sánchez's government, but also "prudence" until the text is analyzed in depth.

A "very attractive" destination

Where the executive of Pedro Sánchez and the two employers' associations do agree is that Spain is a "very attractive" destination for data centers, because "it is cheaper than elsewhere," according to René Serral, professor at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). He states that in Spain there is "land, water, wind and solar energy, and lower labor and space rental costs." "Doing this in Germany would be much more expensive," he summarizes.

Today, the requests and permits for these facilities already "exceed several times" the objective set for 2030, assures the ministry in charge. The infrastructures in operation in less than four years were expected to require between 3.5 GW and 4 GW of electrical demand, while, to date, more than 12 GW of rights of access and connection to the electrical grid have already been granted.

What does the government propose?

Serral maintains that turning Spain into a reference destination for technology companies has a major economic impact, but at the same time, warns of the "negative environmental and energy consequences. "All the services we use every day, from WhatsApp to Word documents, use hundreds of data centers. The difference compared to a few years ago is that artificial intelligence has multiplied this demand," he explains.

In this context, the Spanish government wants data centers to produce a volume of renewable energy equivalent to 80% of their energy consumption. It foresees that they can either generate it themselves or purchase it from third parties. Beyond the issue of clean energy, Serral warns that data centers "involve more water consumption and the removal of forests," which limits the expansion of these infrastructures. Likewise, Spain is also in favor of requiring data centers to comply to the highest degree with the European directive on energy efficiency.

Regarding digital sovereignty, the royal decree stipulates that data center operators must be European and that the data and logs they operate with must remain within the community territory. Serral, who considers it a primary requirement for advance in strategic autonomy, warns that Europe must act as a bloc "in order not to depend on the United States or China". In this sense, "it should be the same whether the data center is in Spain or Germany", although he admits that the economic repercussion is indeed different. "We have to know what problem we want to solve, whether it's technological self-sufficiency or unemployment and wealth creation," he concludes.