Spain sends revised data centre decree to Council of State, easing green rules

What the revised draft changes

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition sent the revised royal decree on data centres to the Council of State on Monday, 26 October, after a consultation period that drew more than 600 objections. The text keeps the core obligations of the first draft but softens several of them. The most visible change is the threshold: facilities with an access capacity above 10 MW now fall under the general obligations, up from 1 MW in the original version. According to La Razón, the ministry argues that installations of this size are the ones with an appreciable impact on available grid capacity and on water and territorial resources. Smaller sites are not fully exempt, since communication and publicity duties still apply from 500 kilowatts of IT capacity.

Renewable supply and contract rules

Facilities above 10 MW must still cover at least 80% of their consumption through self-generation or purchase contracts for renewable electricity generated in Spain. The hour-by-hour matching requirement in the first draft drew the sharpest objections from companies, and the revised text adds a gradual route to meet it. Renewable plants linked to a data centre may now have been commissioned up to 36 months before the facility starts operating, against 18 months in the first draft. The minimum length of long-term renewable purchase contracts, known as PPAs, falls from ten years to six. The draft also introduces flexibility for repowered plants, biomass and biogas plants at the end of their regulatory life, and existing solar plants without a prior PPA, while explicitly allowing storage installations to count toward the targets.

A transitional period tied to grid curtailment

Data centres may opt into a transitional regime of up to five years from the decree's entry into force, with looser requirements. Until 31 December 2028 they need 60% renewable coverage, and only in peak hours at their voltage level. After that date, and until the transitional period ends, the requirement rises to 70% in both peak and flat hours. In exchange, these facilities must join the Automatic Power Reduction System (SRAP), a mechanism operated by Red Eléctrica de España that cuts or reduces generation, pumped-storage or storage installations when the grid shows congestion or a real-time fault. Under this regime the grid operator can disconnect the centres automatically when needed, without payment, making them the first category to be cut. The government's argument is that a new entrant should bear the cost of the demand it adds, since flat, constant consumption can deepen the load in evening peak hours.

Industry pushback and the CNMC report

The first draft provoked strong rejection from the sector, and according to La Razón, objections also came from the electricity and telecommunications industries and from the SpainDC employers' group. The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) issued a critical report asking for some obligations to be moderated, and the revised text eases the hourly renewable requirement that the regulator had asked to relax. EL PAÍS reports that companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, ACS and Merlin Properties were among those opposing the draft, and that some had threatened multimillion-euro claims and a halt to investment. The ministry says the text keeps the ambition of the original proposal, with the aim of preventing data centre growth from pushing up household and industrial electricity bills.

Timing before the 29 November election

The government wants to approve the decree before the general election on 29 November, a goal El Periódico says it has kept. After the vote, a caretaker government may not approve royal decrees unless they are urgent or clearly serve the general interest. If the decree is not approved in time, Moncloa intends to ask the State Attorney's Office (Abogacía del Estado) for permission to approve it while still in a caretaker role. The draft is now with the Council of State for review. The key dates reported in the coverage are shown below.