The AI data centre planned by PPC in Kozani will have no impact on household and business electricity bills, Eurelectric’s Vice President, President and CEO George Stassis said yesterday in a statement at the European organisation’s annual conference in Helsinki.
The main topic of discussion at the conference, which ends today, Thursday, is the consequences of the growth of data centers, which consume huge amounts of energy for cooling, on the electricity networks and on electricity prices.
It is telling that Mr. Stassis, as vice president of Eurelectric, and Diane Hodnett, Google’s director of data center investment and development on behalf of companies in the industry, signed a cooperation agreement yesterday at the conference to investigate the impact of data center development on networks and electricity prices, and to formulate proposals to address these issues.
Eurelectric forecasts that the energy demand of data centres developed in Europe will reach between 149 and 287 terawatt-hours in 2030, covering 28% of the demand growth between 2023 and 2030.
“In any system, when very high demand suddenly arises, the big consumer will secure the best price. In Europe, there will be huge additional demand, among other things, because of data centers. And we will have to meet it with additional capacity, so as not to increase the cost for citizens. This is exactly what we are doing in Greece,” Stassis said, referring to the Kozani investment. “As part of our project, we intend to turn a lignite area into a clean energy production valley. We will create additional production capacity and will also build a data center, without affecting the residents. This is a co-existence architecture that we are seeing increasingly prevalent around the world, as well as in the United States,” the PPC chief said.
PPC, it is recalled, plans to build a data center with a capacity of – in the first phase – 300 megawatts at the former lignite area of Kozani. The company is currently negotiating with data center operators, among the largest in the world, who will take over the digital part of the investment, while PPC will contribute the electricity generated by new renewable energy and gas plants to be built in the area, the land and the networks. According to the plan, the deal is expected to be finalised in the next six months and construction of the data centre could start in 2026. This phase is included in PPC’s new plan, which is supported by the recently successfully completed EUR 4 billion equity issue. In the next phase, an expansion of the investment to 1 gigawatt is planned.
The Eurelectric conference yesterday also highlighted the need “to accelerate the transition to domestic, clean and reliable electricity”, as Eurelectric president Markus Rauramo underlined. “Recent years”, he said, “have demonstrated the real costs of dependence on imported fossil fuels: crisis, uncertainty, strategic vulnerability. Energy security and carbonisation are no longer separate issues. They are one and the same. And in this context, Europe’s response must be clear. The good news is that the direction we have set is the right one. Member States that invested early in clean energy, electrification and diversification of supply are now structurally more resilient. This confirms that electrification is not only a climate solution, but also a competitiveness and security strategy.”
On the same topic, Stasi said that in the last five years, we have experienced two energy crises as a result of geopolitical phenomena, adding: “The lesson is that Europe is suffering huge impacts on its energy system due to its dependence on fossil fuels. It is absolutely clear that the more renewables we introduce into our system, the more the price pressures will be reduced in the coming years. Of course, this is not enough. Interconnections are also a very important element, as are flexible generation plants that will complement renewables. There is a long way to go, but there is no other way. Either we remain dependent on third parties or we take our energy independence into our own hands.”
