When you lead O&M in solar or wind plants, every shift in the load curve turns into a field decision. The rise of data centers, driven by AI and cloud, is repositioning demand, PPAs, and operational routines, which requires close attention to availability, granular metering, and firming strategies with BESS to ensure hour-by-hour alignment without compromising performance KPIs.
In this blogpost, the goal is straightforward: explain what these facilities are and why they matter for plant operations, unpack the clean-energy requirement with hourly proof of delivery, and then cover a country-by-country overview, bringing market signals and practical implications for day-to-day performance management.
Timing is critical. In the United States and Europe, the combination of low vacancy, competition for grid capacity, and corporate decarbonization targets is speeding up contracting models that blend PPAs, time-of-day flexibility, and storage. This creates clear opportunities for renewable assets that can prove hour-by-hour deliverability.

What is a data center and why has energy moved to the center of the discussion?

Data centers are mission-critical facilities that process and store cloud and AI workloads. From an O&M perspective, they behave as large continuous electrical loads anchored by long-term contracts and robust carbon targets covering scope 2 and scope 3, which drives demand for traceable renewable energy and for thermal and electrical efficiency measured by PUE. In 2025, higher power density per rack and the rush for capacity are putting simultaneous pressure on generation, the grid, and firm supply. The result is a market that prioritizes proximity to substations, access to transmission, water availability, and cooling-friendly climates, all of which define CAPEX and OPEX and the viable energy design for each campus.

Why this matters for renewable O&M

For generation portfolios, the entry of large data hubs changes the operating logic. PPAs or GPAs with 10 to 15 years of term, time-of-day flexibility clauses, and granular measurement and verification bring revenue predictability and reduce curtailment by anchoring demand at critical nodes. BESS evolves from nice-to-have to a tactical tool that shapes the delivery curve, smooths variability, and enables hour-by-hour proof of renewable supply. At the same time, carbon SLAs and hourly energy attributes place SCADA data, 15-minute metering, electrical losses, and availability at the same level of importance as MTBF, TIEPI or SAIDI, and other classic O&M indicators, with direct impact on remuneration, penalties, and ancillary revenues.

How it works in practice

Projects that align renewable energy with consumption combine physical or virtual PPAs, energy certificates, and BESS. Site selection weighs substations and subsea cables, water and climate for thermal efficiency, as well as permits and connection lead times. Typical schedules range from 24 to 60 months between capacity reservation and operations. Grid access is often the bottleneck, which increases the value of hybrid solutions that pair renewables and BESS, sometimes backup generation, and contracts with time windows that match the real profile of both load and generation.

Country snapshots

United States

The market is running at historic highs, with very low vacancy, intense competition for capacity, and pre-leased power blocks secured years in advance. This environment tightens prices and lead times, yet opens room for PPAs with customized time windows and BESS coupling to reduce the temporal mismatch between generation and load. Interconnection delays and transmission limits are pushing tactical alternatives like on-site generation and hybrid supply agreements. For O&M, the focus is reliability, demand response readiness, and telemetry that proves hourly attributes with end-to-end traceability.

Spain (Europe)

Spain has become an Iberian hotspot. Madrid and Barcelona are accelerating investments and expanding the pipeline, positioning the country as a strategic hub for AI workloads and Mediterranean connectivity, while reflecting broader European trends in markets such as Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany under different regulatory contexts. On the generation side, contracts that require hourly delivery gain traction by combining inland solar PPAs in Aragón and Castile with onshore and offshore wind and storage. This supports corporate targets like RE100 and reduces exposure to curtailment. O&M teams should prepare data integrations that support hourly verification and efficiency-by-design policies that address losses, availability, and degradation from the pre-contract stage.

Brazil

Brazil’s new tax regime for data centers triggered a surge of interconnection requests and is beginning to consolidate load clusters, with the Southeast standing out. For O&M, the recommendation is to map clusters near connection nodes and prioritize contracts with firm hourly delivery, tight SCADA plus metering integration, BESS use, and maintenance plans that protect availability under stricter SLAs.

Chile

Chile is experiencing rapid cloud expansion with new campuses and the arrival of dedicated regions. The mix of solar in the North and wind in the South, together with an already renewable-heavy matrix, creates an ideal setting for medium and long-term PPAs with BESS and tighter availability SLAs. The competitive edge for O&M is in planning maintenance and logistics around the contracted hourly profile, integrating telemetry for carbon proof, and designing firming strategies that stabilize revenues without compromising asset life.

When and how to use this in O&M

In systems with excess generation and curtailment, data centers act as anchor loads that stabilize revenues and improve the use of grid infrastructure. The step-by-step includes sizing BESS for 1 to 4 hours to shape the delivery curve, defining PPA time windows consistent with the real load profile, integrating SCADA and 15-minute metering for hourly proof of renewable supply, and tuning energy SLAs, including losses, availability, and degradation, as operational KPIs in the contract. In parallel, negotiate ancillary services and demand response participation to capture additional revenue when operational headroom is available.

System-wide benefits

Large, steady loads bring predictable cash flow for plants, justify transmission upgrades, and energize the local value chain, from engineering and O&M to specialized services and workforce development. In markets like Spain and the United States, coordination among developers, grid operators, and data center companies tends to accelerate capacity releases and attract long-term capital, provided the regulatory environment ensures stability, clear additionality and traceability criteria, and auditable carbon targets.

Work with Delfos

With Delfos, the match between consumption and renewable generation hour by hour moves from concept to daily operations, supported by intelligent forecasting, SCADA integration, and granular traceability that proves each MWh delivered in the same hour it was used. Our platform blends meteorological models, market data, and optimization algorithms to tune BESS usage, reduce curtailment, and provide continuous visibility of availability, losses, and degradation, all in a single dashboard. The result is simple: predictability for planning, confidence for decision-making, and protected margins in operations.
Want to see this applied to your assets? Book a demo now.

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Refererences

United States 

• CBRE — “North America Data Center Trends H1 2025: AI and hyperscaler demand lead to record-low vacancy”
• Bloom Energy — “2025 Data Center Power Report” (PDF)
• Deloitte — “Data center infrastructure for artificial intelligence”
  

Spain

• DataCenterDynamics (DCD) — “Digital Realty destina quase €500 milhões para data centers em Madrid e Barcelona”
• Catalonia Trade & Investment — “Digital Realty invests €230M in a new data center in Barcelona”
• Madrid Investment Attraction (MIA) — “Digital Realty strengthens its commitment to Madrid with a €500M investment”
  

Brazil 

• MegaWhat — “Após MP do REData, EPE recebe pedidos de 5,8 GW em 24h”
• Canal Solar — “10 GW em pedidos de datacenters desde o lançamento do REData”
• Elea Data Centers — “Elea announces Rio AI City” (anúncio oficial)
• DataCenterDynamics (DCD) — “Rio de Janeiro city hall announces partnerships with Oracle and NVIDIA for AI City”
  
  

Chile 

• Reuters — “Amazon to spend $4 billion on cloud infrastructure in Chile”
• Ascenty — “Ascenty inaugura seu terceiro data center no Chile (Santiago 03 — 16 MW)”