Artificial intelligence (AI) needs a lot of energy to run. For this reason, the Swiss electricity provider and project developer of green energy plants Edisun Power is building a huge solar park in Fuencarral with a planned capacity of 941 megawatts. The plant north-west of Madrid is designed to supply data centres with clean solar power.
Not just feeding in via grid access
Edisun aims to benefit from the additional demand for electricity resulting from the use of AI applications and from the stricter regulations in Europe for the low-emission operation of data centres as part of the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED). In order to align the projects with the supply of data centres for artificial intelligence, the grid connection should also be able to be used to draw energy from the grid in addition to the already approved feed-in of solar power.
All approvals have been received
The large-scale plant actually consists of three projects. Edisun has already secured grid access. The connection rights and the environmental licence (Declaracion de Impacto Ambiental - DIA) and administrative approval have also already been granted. Edisun has even already obtained the official building licence.
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Search for investors has begun
In order to hedge the risks inherent in such a huge project, Edisun is acquiring additional special purpose vehicles from Smartenergy. In return, Edisun is selling its project portfolio in Italy totalling approximately 159 megawatts to Smartenergy.
Increase the rate of expansion for renewables in Europe by a factor 5
At the same time, Edisun has started the process of finding investors to participate financially in the project. The company is focusing primarily on infrastructure funds, other private equity holders or data centre operators who are to be won over to invest in the large-scale plant. In addition, Edisun has already entered into talks with a banking consortium to finance the construction of the project. If the financing of the project does not materialise, Smartenergy has promised to buy back the large-scale Fuencarral plant. (su)
