Badajoz data centre's €12.7 million grid substation opens for public objections

The story so far, in brief; the legwork, and the full article, stay with the original outlet.

Nostrum Evergreen, the data centre complex for computing and artificial intelligence that Nostrum Group is building at the Badajoz Logistics Platform, has reached another administrative step. On 15 September 2026 Spain's Official State Gazette published the request by Data Riocaya, S.L.U. to build the SET Enlace 400/220 kV substation and a 291.96-metre overhead line to Red Eléctrica's Riocaya substation. The works carry an execution budget of €12,726,868.47 and are designed for a 300 MW connection. The wider project's announced investment is above €1.9 billion, and earlier reports put the campus's eventual capacity at up to 500 MW, built in phases.

The substation will hold six 400/220 kV transformers with space for two more, plus 2N redundancy. The publication opens a 30-business-day window for objections, with the final decision resting with the Directorate-General for Energy Policy and Mines. Nothing is authorised yet. Red Eléctrica granted grid access on 31 May 2023, and the formal request reached the ministry on 18 August 2025, so the paperwork moves at its own steady pace.

The 220 kV side and the lines feeding the data centre are handled separately by the Junta de Extremadura, which already gave prior authorisation in September. That covers two underground 220 kV lines of 3,342.74 and 3,276.91 metres and a DC Badajoz 220/20 kV substation. Because the overhead line is under 300 metres, it falls well short of the length that would trigger an environmental impact assessment, one of the few cases where a €1.9 billion project benefits from being small.