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Portugal, Spain growing data centre markets to gain further hyperscale power

Four sites, which at full build will provide as much as 240MW are planned for cities across the Iberian Peninsula.

By João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

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April 08, 2021 | 2:58 PM BST

MERLIN Properties SOCIMI, S.A. (MC:MRL) has announced a multi-phase partnership with Edged Energy, a subsidiary of Endeavour, to build a major network of waterless data centres in the cities of Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona and Lisbon, within MERLIN’s existing land bank.

Each of the initial four data centres will consume zero water for cooling, have a guaranteed Power Utilisation Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.15 annually, and use 67% less energy for cooling and overhead systems than average European data centres, which the Uptime Institute estimates to have a PUE of 1.46.

The power that each facility uses will come from local renewable energy sources, primarily MERLIN roof-mounted and ground PV installations. 

Each data centre will also have hours of battery energy storage which will allow for 24/7 renewable energy use.

The sites in Barcelona and Madrid will support up to a total of 20MW of load each, while the data centre campus sites in Bilbao and Lisbon have the infrastructure to support hyperscale builds in excess of 100MW each (20MW in a first phase).

David Brush, co-founder of MERLIN and Special Advisor to the Data Center Program at the company, said: “We service a wide range of customers, from high tech companies in our signature office buildings to international logistics operators in our warehouses. 

“The Iberian region is perfectly positioned to be the principal gateway connecting the digital economies of Europe, North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and beyond. This world class infrastructure platform will allow cloud and technology companies to better service and connect to a diverse customer base.”

Jakob Carnemark, founder of Endeavor and a 25-year veteran of the industry, with more than $5 billion in data centre built, added: “The Iberian Peninsula is fast-becoming one of the most strategically connected places in the world with excellent fibre networks and an abundance of solar and wind energy resources. 

“This region is a major focus for us as we continue building the first carbon-neutral and water-neutral global platform for data centre edge infrastructure.”

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João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

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