Spain treasures conditions that place it among the most attractive countries to host data centers (CPDs). Its privileged location for international connectivity, with direct access to fiber optic cables; a solid energy infrastructure led by renewable energy sources; the availability of land and a regulatory environment favorable to digitalization delight investors. However, beneath the surface of this boom, debates emerge, and one of the most important is the energy one.
It is vox populi that the exponential growth of data centers generates water stress. The water resources of a given area are compromised for the cooling of the servers with the purpose of preventing them from overheating. Evaporative cooling towers or any similar system to dissipate high temperatures consume millions of liters of water per day in large facilities; and companies like Google or Microsoft recognize that water is one of their most critical resources.
Spain suffers increasingly intense drought cycles due to climate change, which is why water use occupies a vital place on the political and social agenda. Projects that fail to position themselves as environmentally friendly and ensure a local economic return, will face significant citizen rejection.
However, the technological evolution of the sector has included new nuances, new rules of the game. New generation data centers, especially those of tier III and tier IV category, incorporate increasingly efficient cooling systems. Many of them have closed circuits or hybrid solutions, which allows for a significant reduction in water consumption.
Although it depends on technology and water consumption does not disappear completely and remains a valuable resource, sector experts consulted by Demócrata consider that the axis of the debate has shifted, so that the challenges are now located not so much in alleviating water stress as in guaranteeing a sustained energy source.
The axis of the debate has turned: from water stress to sustained energy
The irruption of artificial intelligence, with much more intensive workloads, has notably increased the required power density for these infrastructures. Current networks are capable of absorbing that demand and responding, but it requires reinforcements, new connections, and more sophisticated planning to adapt to higher, constant, and concentrated consumption. So much so that a bottleneck of committed power has been generated and the Government took advantage of the anti-crisis decree due to the Iran war to try to solve it.
The Executive has included new demands on data center projects and has imposed a fee for capacity reservation, so that whoever does not execute the project will lose access to the network.
From water stress to nuclear energy
In this context, supply stability becomes a critical factor. Unlike other electrical uses, data centers require a constant energy flow, without interruptions or significant variations. This requirement poses challenges in systems with increasing penetration of renewable energies, whose generation is variable by nature and depends on factors such as wind or solar radiation. While these sources can cover a substantial part of the demand, their large-scale integration requires complementary solutions, such as storage systems or backup technologies.
It is, furthermore, a debate susceptible to politicization and has acquired an international dimension. For example, in the United States some large operators are exploring formulas such as modular nuclear reactors, still in different phases of development.
In Europe, the approach combines a strong commitment to renewable energies with an open debate about the role of other technologies in the energy mix. In this context, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently reopened the discussion about the contribution of nuclear energy, at a time when the need to guarantee a stable supply coexists with decarbonization objectives and with divergent positions among Member States. Without going any further, in Spain several opposition parties insist on keeping nuclear power plants operational.
As things stand, renewables will continue playing a central role, but their development must be synchronized with solutions that ensure the continuity of supply. In parallel, other technologies, including nuclear, continue forming part of a discussion that, far from being closed, will mark the energy future of the sector.