Uruguay's government signed what it calls the largest investment in the country's history on 14 October: a data centre park of up to 500 MW with its own solar plants, developed by Spain's Solaria. President Yamandú Orsi and Solaria chief executive Arturo Díaz-Tejeiro signed the agreement at the Torre Ejecutiva in Montevideo, The Rio Times reports. The total is US$5.7 billion, US$5.5 billion of it for data centre infrastructure and US$200 million for solar.
Canelones First, San José Later
Phase one covers 200 MW of data centres in Canelones and 350 MW of solar generation in the department of Florida. It is expected to run in 2029, or 2030 at the latest. A second phase would add 300 MW of data centres in San José; its energy supply is not defined yet and it would start under the next government. Industry Minister Fernanda Cardona said the US$5.7 billion covers buildings and works, not the computing equipment inside them.
The park will operate under Uruguay's free-zone regime, which exempts companies from most national taxes. Solaria knows the country: its plants in Young and Mercedes have sold power to the state utility UTE for close to ten years. According to the minister, the negotiation took less than five months, from a first contact in Madrid in February to a UTE team closing the deal at Solaria's headquarters in September.
- Construction: about 3,100 workers through 2029, roughly 2,400 on the data centres and 700 on the solar plants.
- Operation: about 1,500 permanent jobs, by government figures.
- Why Uruguay: the president pointed to 94 % fibre-optic coverage and the submarine cables landing in the country; officials named stability as the deciding factor, W.Media and The Rio Times report.
The Grid as an Emergency Feed
One line in the coverage stands out. Officials told the press that UTE would supply the park only in emergencies, with Solaria's solar plants as its own source. The agreement itself is confidential. No tenant has been named, and the government has not said how the buildings will be cooled or how much water they will use. Darío Castiglioni, who sits on UTE's board for the opposition National Party, said he had not been informed and criticised the lack of transparency. Cardona named timing and cost as the main risks.
A solar plant stops producing at sunset; a data hall does not stop drawing. Nothing published so far says what carries the load through the night and through overcast weeks, whether storage, firm supply from the grid or generation on site. That answer decides how much generating plant the campus needs, how much fuel has to be stored and delivered, and how often it runs. For anyone pricing phase one, it is the first question to put to the developer.
Sources: The Rio Times, W.Media