The next industrial revolution requires the development of the electricity transmission grid

On Friday, 12 January, SpainDC made the allegations associated with the Proposal for the Punctual Amendment of the Electrical Energy Transmission Plan, showing its concern for the lack of infrastructures required to drive the development of the data centre industry in Spain. According to the information available to us, at least 59 files of applications for data centres have been excluded from the Specific Modification of the Development Plan of the Electricity Transmission Network, without the reason being stated.

This is not good news and must reflect on the current situation, but we still have time to resolve it. Everything that happens in the digital realm takes place in data centres, without which there is no digital economy.

The Plan for the Development of the Electrical Grid that requires amendments was prepared in 2019, with data from 2018. During this period, the growth rate was of less than 0.5% across the Iberian Peninsula. Currently, the real needs after the Covid pandemic, accelerated digital transformation, the challenges of AI or the deployment of cloud regions in Spain are not in line with the ideas of 2018.

Between 2015 and 2021, the number of internet users increased by 60% and internet traffic by 440%, according to data from the International Energy Agency. Video conferencing traffic on DE-CIX increased by 50% and gaming and social media traffic increased by 25%.

According to the MIT report "The Great Acceleration: CIO Perspectives on Generative AI", we should expect a global aggregate value to the economy of between USD 2.6 and 4.4 billion, which would represent 40% of the total, thanks to the development of AI. However, a study published by the consulting firm PwC states that it will be China (with a 26% increase in its GDP) and the United States (with a 14.5% increase in its GDP) that will take advantage of this transformation.

Spain suffers from a serious infrastructure deficit. We simply have to compare the IT capacity per capita with that of countries around us. The Netherlands has a capacity of 34.2 MW per million inhabitants, while this figure is 10 times smaller in Spain, so there is a much larger area for growth than there may be in other much more consolidated sectors of the energy market.

Only through the development of a data centre industry in Spain can we reap the rewards of this fourth industrial revolution. The advantages apply across all levels: increased spending, more jobs, increase in tax collection, reduction of polluting emissions and development of the local economy and small and medium-sized enterprises. 

It is only through data centres in Spain that data sovereignty and the digitalisation of public services be guaranteed from facilities in our country.

Spain, a country that aspires to become a leader in the field of renewable electricity generation, cannot ignore the requirements associated with the new demand for electricity. Spanish industrial productivity has fallen significantly in recent years, reaching levels similar to those of 2006. Data centres create high value-added ecosystems, essentially, of employment and industrial and digital GDP that could mitigate and even reverse such losses.