XDC Properties, a subsidiary of the Stoneshield Capital group, has announced a new project together with the Government of Cantabria, known as ‘Project Altamira’. The initiative involves the development of a technological campus that will house a high-capacity 500 MW data centre, which will entail an investment of 3.6 billion euros in the region, the largest ever received, and whose design and development is being participated in by Quark, part of the engineering and technology group Sener. The project will boost the economic, technological and social development of Cantabria. Development is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025, with the aim of starting operations in 2032.

“The Altamira Project will consist of 12 adjacent data centre modules of 40 MW each, which will have a surface area of ​​75,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels to supply renewable energy to the campus. The project will be developed in a modular and phased manner, accompanying the development and growth of end customers, to facilitate implementation and flexibly adapt to their needs,” says Ricardo Abad, CEO of Quark, technical advisor of XDC Properties.

During the construction phase, more than 1,500 direct jobs will be created. The operational stage will create more than 1,450 jobs, of which 350 will be direct and 1,100 indirect. The Altamira project will be declared a Strategic Business Project by the Government of Cantabria due to its high economic investment and creation of quality employment, its commitment to sustainability and the reduction of CO2 emissions, and the goal of transforming the selected lands into a European benchmark technological infrastructure.

Felipe Morenés, co-founder of Stoneshield Capital, has pointed out that “with this project, Cantabria is positioned as one of the main technological hubs in Europe, at the level of cities such as Madrid, Milan, Frankfurt or London. The data centre will take advantage of its strategic location near the landing station of the ANJANA submarine cable, promoted by Meta, which connects Cantabria with South Carolina. This system, with 24 fibre pairs, is currently the submarine cable with the highest capacity in the world.” Juan Pepa, co-founder of Stoneshield Capital, underlines that “Stoneshield Capital, through XDC Properties, reaffirms its commitment to leading the digital transformation. We are developing efficient and sustainable data centres that are also drivers of economic growth. The growing global demand for services such as cloud, artificial intelligence, big data analysis and IoT is driving up infrastructure needs. Data centre revenue is projected to reach $200 billion in 2025 and $900 billion in 2037, driven by this digital transformation.”

The ECOFOSS R&D project, whose objective is the design of a zero-emission floating high-voltage alternating current electrical substation, has started its testing phase this month by carrying out tests with a model to validate its behaviour at sea in a controlled aquatic environment.

ECOFOSS is an innovative project promoted by a consortium of six high-tech companies: Red Eléctrica, Sener, Ocean Ecostructures, Ditrel and Uptech Sensing, and led by Navantia Seanergies, through its centre of excellence COEX Green Energies.

The floating substation being developed thanks to this project will allow the electrical production of offshore wind turbines, installed in deep water areas far from the coast, to be integrated into the electrical system for subsequent distribution to consumers.

The tests that have begun consisting of the experimental analysis of the behaviour of the substation at sea, thanks to the study of the behaviour of its 1/40 scale model in a tank where ocean conditions are reproduced. These results will then be compared with those previously obtained from the simulations carried out in the design phase.

These tests will allow the validation of the design of the substation and its operation in locations with specific wind, sea and current conditions. The dynamics of the mooring system, as well as the dynamic power cables, and their response to different sea states and specific seabeds will also be tested. However, an experimental database will be generated for the calibration and validation of the numerical models used for the concept design.

The hydrogen plant will be validated in March

This project is especially innovative as it is the first zero-emission substation design: It includes a renewable hydrogen generation and re-electrification plant, which will feed the substation’s auxiliary services in maintenance and emergency situations in which it cannot obtain electrical energy from the wind farm.

The hydrogen plant tests will be carried out in March, on a test bench that is being developed at the COEX Green Energies headquarters located at the Navantia Seanergies facilities in Cartagena.

The project consortium

Each of the ECOFOSS partners brings its specific experience and knowledge to the project. Navantia, a SEPI group company that leads the project through its green energy division Navantia Seanergies, has been designing and building foundations and substations for offshore wind farms for 10 years and has accumulated knowledge and experience in the hydrogen sector. Red Eléctrica – a subsidiary of Redeia – is the operator and transporter of the Spanish electricity system, providing its knowledge and experience in substations and submarine links, always ensuring a quality and safe electricity supply – and increasingly renewable – throughout the country. Sener, for its part, is a leading multidisciplinary engineering and technology firm, with extensive experience in the design of offshore floating platforms and naval engineering. Ocean Ecostructures is a bluetech company that, through its technology, transforms any marine infrastructure into “nature positive” spaces, regenerating marine biodiversity. Ditrel has specialized in power cable connection systems and Uptech Sensing is characterized by providing fiber optic monitoring solutions for power cables.

This is a fundamental project for the deployment and integration into the electrical system in an efficient, safe and environmentally friendly way of offshore wind energy, aligned with the objectives of the Roadmap for the development of Offshore Wind and Marine Energy in Spain, which will be developed through floating technology. Offshore wind is one of the renewable energy sources that will allow the ecological transition to be achieved, contributing to energy independence.

Financing

ECOFOSS is part of the INNCODIS tractor project, an action financed through the PERTE Naval Call, launched by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism and belonging to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). Financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU.

The Cantabria Maritime Engineering Tank

Managed by IH Cantabria, this infrastructure has a multidirectional wave generator, as well as a current generator that allows generating any meteo-ocean condition on a laboratory scale. With dimensions of 30 x 44 x 3 meters deep, the installation integrates Hardware-In-The-Loop type systems for simulating the action of the wind on turbines and any other type of offshore structure with the highest levels of realism and fidelity. The main purpose of the installation is to contribute to the validation of innovative structural typologies, both fixed and floating.

Spain needs €198.435 million (M€) of investment in infrastructures for water, energy, environment and public facilities essential to guarantee compliance with Directives and regulations on the complete water cycle and waste treatment and to guarantee compliance with national and European objectives in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy neutrality, according to data included in the report “Analysis of Priority Investment in Infrastructure in Spain” prepared by Sener, at the request of SEOPAN, the Association of Construction and Concession Companies of Infrastructures. This investment is broken down into €72.134 million in planned actions, €56.656 million in modernization and adaptation of existing infrastructures and €69.645 million in examples of innovative projects.

The planned investments in water and energy infrastructure represent €72,134 million, contained in the third cycle hydrological plans 2022-2027 and the PNIEC 2023-2030. In hydraulic infrastructures, €11,016 million stands out in sanitation and purification, essential to protect public health and the environment, €8,748 million in supply and irrigation measures, to mitigate the unequal distribution of water resources, €3,724 million in the management of water resources to mitigate drought, €1,649 million in conservation and maintenance, €4,871 million in actions related to irrigation and plans for agriculture and €3,054 million in actions for the prevention and mitigation of the risk of flooding in Spain, the fourth European country, according to Eurostat, with the greatest economic losses due to extreme weather phenomena and climatic events, which represented €27.13/inhabitant in 2020. Another €4,876 million would be added in actions related to the management and restoration of the public hydraulic domain. In addition to the above hydraulic measures included in the report, which in relation to adaptation to climate change in the Spanish Mediterranean Basins represent €2,432 million, we should add the investments scheduled in 2022-2027 of the Flood Risk Management Plan, of €3,312 million not included in the report, as well as €820 million of investment in the scope of the DANA of 29/10/2024 in the re-study and execution of 5 rolling structures and environmental adaptation projects as they constitute the most effective alternative to roll off floods in extreme episodes of rainfall in flood zones with a high rate of population and urbanization.

Regarding the planned investments of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) 2023-2030, the execution of adaptation measures, capacity and network interconnection, and energy efficiency and hydroelectric storage measures, requires €34,196 million of investment. They are broken down into €7,646 million for adapting transmission networks to integrate renewable energy, €4,200 million to increase hydroelectric storage capacity to 3.5 GW by 2030, €4,187 million to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings in the residential sector and investments to improve energy efficiency in ports (€306 million), buildings in the tertiary sector (€2,376 million) and in cold-generating equipment and large air-conditioning installations in the tertiary sector and public infrastructures (€3,947 million). Lastly, it identifies €1,000 million for improving efficiency in the public sector and €10,534 million for actions to increase electrical interconnection in the foreign market and meet the interconnection target of 15% by 2030 (32,100 MW).

Investments in modernisation and adaptation of the existing infrastructure stock, including hydraulic, environmental and public facilities, represent €56,656 million.

In the modernisation and adaptation of infrastructures for the complete water cycle, 44,518 million euros of investment have been identified, highlighting 15,643 million euros in the conversion of unitary sewerage networks to separate ones, 15,000 million euros in adapting the national stock of treatment plants to the requirements of the new Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, 10,849 million euros for the replacement of water supply networks that are more than 40 years old, 1,539 million euros to promote and achieve energy neutrality in the national stock of desalination plants and treatment plants in operation, which would imply an annual saving in energy consumption of more than 970 million euros, and 1,487 million euros to provide basic sewerage and sanitation services to more than 972,000 homes in Spain that lack them according to the 2020 Survey of Local Infrastructures and Equipment of the Ministry of Territorial Policy. In the modernisation and adaptation of environmental infrastructure, the report identifies €2,733 million, broken down into €2,220 million of investment in waste treatment and recovery plants to meet the EU’s 2030 objectives, €290 million of investment in treatment plants to boost the conversion of wastewater sludge into biogas with a reduction of 471,000 t of CO2, and €223 million of investment for the closure and conditioning of 223 hectares of landfills and to achieve the objective of the Spanish Circular Economy Strategy of reducing waste disposal by 10% in 2030.

The block of investments in modernisation and adaptation of infrastructure is completed by those relating to hospital capacity and energy neutrality in public facilities. They amount to €9,405 million, broken down into €7,831 million for 15,355 new hospital beds to reduce waiting lists in hospitals of the National Health System to zero, and €1,277 million and €297 million of investment to achieve energy neutrality in hospital and university equipment, respectively, with renewable photovoltaic self-consumption and an estimated aggregate saving of annual public expenditure on electricity consumption of €1,800 million, equivalent to the commissioning of 3,331 hospital beds/year and 350,000 scholarships/year. Finally, examples of innovative investments of €69.645 million are identified, related to the prevention of desertification and the promotion of high added value crops in Murcia and Malaga (€7.007 million), the generation of renewable photovoltaic energy on 5,000 hectares of usable surface area of ​​the national highway network (€1.638 million), the promotion and development of floating photovoltaic energy, wave energy and green hydrogen (€21 billion), the creation of urban green infrastructure and the promotion and deployment of district heating/cooling networks with a minimum investment range of €40 billion by 2050 to obtain, with renewable energy, 25% coverage of the national demand for air conditioning in the residential and tertiary sectors.