Solaria is hunting partners to back a pan‑European data‑centre platform. Solaria has hired Goldman Sachs to help secure capital.
What Solaria is building
Solaria has gone from rooftop photovoltaics to plotting a large play in the data‑centre market. The Madrid‑listed renewables group is assembling a platform that already claims about 3.4GW of secured grid access across roughly 400 hectares in Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK, and it has asked for permission to tap another 5GW of capacity.
This scale is intentional. Solaria wants to pair generation with consumption — building sites that can host cloud and AI processing while being fed by solar power and battery storage. The company has hired Goldman Sachs to help find a financial partner for the project, according to the company’s public disclosures.
José Arturo Díaz‑Tejeiro Larrañaga, Chief Executive Officer of Solaria, framed the play as part of a wider transformation. “Solaria takes another step forward in its transformation into an integrated energy and digital operator,” he said, describing new long‑term power purchase agreements and the move into data‑centre and storage businesses as central to the group’s strategy.
Deals and capacity already in motion
Solaria has been active on a number of fronts. It signed a deal with property developer Merlin for a 225MW site that guarantees grid access and the electrical infrastructure needed to run a large data hall.
In parallel, Solaria also sealed a 15‑year solar power purchase agreement with Merlin covering 445MW.
Those commitments follow recent clearances from Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica: Solaria won permission to connect 225MW for a planned facility in the Basque Country and gained approvals for two further data‑centre connections amounting to 130MW near Madrid. The company also revealed plans to convert part of its industrial complex in Puertollano into a 200MW AI data centre with Japanese technology partner Datasection.
Why big utilities and builders are piling in
It's important to note that Solaria isn't the only player. Iberdrola, ACS and other major Spanish groups are racing to stitch energy assets, land and finance together to capture demand from hyperscalers and cloud firms. Spain DC, a sector consultant, estimates the European data‑centre market will attract tens of billions of euros of investment before 2030 — some reports put the figure at about €58bn for projects in Spain and the region.
Iberdrola has been packaging land with guaranteed connections and green power via a dedicated unit, CPD4Green. The group says its first project with Irish operator Echelon Data Centres will need roughly 1TWh of electricity once operational — supplied by on‑site solar and renewable contracts from Iberdrola’s portfolio.
ACS, meanwhile, has struck a major tie‑up with Global Infrastructure Partners to create a 50:50 platform for data‑centre development. That joint venture will start with around 1,700MW of capacity and folds ACS’s in‑flight projects in Europe, the US and Australia into the new vehicle. The partners put an initial valuation on the contributed assets at roughly €2bn, split into a €1bn cash payment up front and up to another €1bn tied to future commercial milestones; there may be an extra €200m for projects still being analysed.
Where Solaria might fit
Solaria’s engagement with Goldman Sachs shows it’s seeking a major investor to share the capital costs. Developing data‑centre campuses isn't just about land and power racks — it needs tens or even hundreds of millions up front for civil works, electrical systems and cooling, then recurring capex as halls are fitted and leased.
Solaria’s assets are attractive because the firm can bundle generation, storage and grid access — a package hyperscalers prize as they hunt for resilient, low‑carbon supply. The company says it already has around 1.6GW of solar installed and more than 1.4GW under construction, while branching into wind and battery storage with a target of 14GW of capacity by 2028 and 18GW by 2030.
That ambition helps explain why funds and infrastructure investors are courting partnerships with Spanish builders and energy groups. ACS’s tie‑up with GIP shows how construction firms can monetise assets and bring in a global infrastructure investor to scale quickly. Solaria is seeking a similar kind of financial partner, albeit one that also values the renewable generation angle.
Risks and the business logic
There are obvious hurdles. Developers face planning and permitting delays, competition for grid capacity and the heavy initial spend required to make a site ‘shovel‑ready’. And funding models vary — some investors prefer yield‑style vehicles that hand back steady cashflows, others back speculative development for higher returns.
The market clearly has strong demand for secured power combined with land. Companies that can offer both are in a better position to sign long PPAs and to attract cloud operators who increasingly demand predictable, low‑carbon power and connection guarantees. Solaria’s 15‑year PPA with Merlin is the sort of contract that proves the model can work.
However, bringing in an external investor changes the dynamics. Partners will want strict commercial milestones and likely insist on governance that protects their capital. ACS’s deal shows how those terms can be structured — up‑front cash, milestone‑linked earnouts and contingent payments for pipeline projects.
What this means for investors
For equity investors in Solaria, the shift into data centres offers a new growth channel and a way to lift asset valuations by combining generation and consumption. For debt and infrastructure funds, platforms that bundle power and land look like a hedge against volatile wholesale prices and a variable regulatory backdrop.
David Mesonero, Director of Corporate Development at Iberdrola, has made the strategic case: giving operators access to grid‑connected plots and guaranteed power sends a strong signal to potential tenants and reduces the time and cost to bring a project online. That model is what’s driving the renewed interest among utility groups.
Bottom line: market participants are moving fast to carve out supply chains for the next wave of cloud and AI capacity. Solaria’s hunt for a partner via Goldman Sachs, ACS’s new platform with GIP and Iberdrola’s CPD4Green unit are different routes to the same prize — secure, green power paired with ready‑to‑build land and infrastructure.
Outlook
If Solaria secures a major investor, it would accelerate its rollout across multiple European markets. The group has already signalled an intention to close deals before next summer for additional power access, which would give it a sizeable head start in competing for hyperscaler contracts.
Point is, this is a multi‑year race. Developers who can marry reliable grid access, long‑term PPAs and flexible development pipelines will be best placed to win the big leases from cloud operators as demand for AI and processing capacity climbs.
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“Solaria takes another step forward in its transformation into an integrated energy and digital operator,” said José Arturo Díaz‑Tejeiro Larrañaga, CEO of Solaria.
This article was created with AI assistance.
