Spain Drafts 80% Hourly Renewables Rule for Data Centers

Spain's draft royal decree would require new data centers of 1MW or more to match 80% of hourly consumption with new renewable generation.

10 Sep 2026

Spain's Council of Ministers approved urgent processing of a draft royal decree on 25 August 2026 imposing strict renewable energy requirements on new data centers. The draft remains in public consultation and is not yet law.

Under the proposal, operators of facilities with grid access capacity of 1MW or more would be required to cover at least 80% of hourly electricity consumption with renewable generation. Compliance must be matched hour by hour, not through annual offsetting. Renewable capacity must be installed within 18 months before operations begin. Operators may use self-consumption arrangements or power purchase agreements to meet that obligation.

Data centers above 500kW would face separate reporting requirements on energy and water efficiency. The draft borrows PUE and WUE methodologies from EU Delegated Regulation 2024/1364. A digital sovereignty clause would restrict operation to EU-established entities, with infrastructure data held within EU territory.

Royal Decree-Law 7/2026 of 20 March mandated the decree, adopted as part of a package responding to the Middle East crisis. A previous consultation in 2024 and 2025 covered a narrower draft limited to energy efficiency and sustainability, without the resilience and sovereignty elements now included.

Industry objections emerged quickly. The public consultation window ran only nine days, from 27 August to 4 September 2026, a compressed timeline that sparked immediate complaints. Associations APPA, ANESE and SpainDC said the period was too short to study a rule affecting projects with combined investments ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of euros.

SpainDC asked for the deadline to be extended and for a technical working group to be established with the administration. Equinix took a more cautious stance, expressing willingness to work with authorities while awaiting the final text.

MITECO's Artificial Intelligence Strategy forecasts nearly 2.5GW of computing power by 2030. This requires electricity demand of between 3.5GW and 4GW. As of the close of the consultation period, the final approved text and a Council of Ministers vote date had not been set.