French datacenter biz signs 12-year nuclear pact with EDF
- Reference: 1757340775
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/08/data4_edf_nuclear_deal/
- Source link:
The arrangement will see Data4's network of server farms across France tap into a 40MW slice of EDF's atomic-powered grid from next year, making it the first datacenter operator in the country to sign a Nuclear Production Allocation Contract (CAPN).
Data4n operates facilities across a number of campuses in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, and Greece, and is understood to have at least 1.5 GW of infrastructure in play.
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Those in France at least will now be partly powered via a CAPN, in addition to long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) Data4 already has in place for solar and wind energy.
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The contract involves a "cost and risk-sharing mechanism" based on the actual volumes of energy produced - a so-called behind-the-meter arrangement where it can secure energy at a reduced cost over the long term.
The move is part of a broader strategy by Data4 to integrate low-carbon and renewable energy across all operations, and thereby operate its datacenters more sustainably.
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Such efforts are not altruistic. Many companies in Europe and elsewhere are starting to [5]demand environmental sustainability data from their suppliers amid efforts to comply with regulations such as the EU's [6]Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
[7]Trump tells Big Tech: Your power woes? Totally fixable
[8]Goldman Sachs warns AI bubble could burst datacenter boom
[9]Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty
[10]Molten salt nuclear reactors slated to power Google datacenters in 2030
"Combined with renewable energy purchase agreements, [this contract] guarantees reliable, resilient, and continuous access to low-carbon energy at a controlled long-term cost - a considerable advantage for our clients and the development of our infrastructure," said François Stérin, Data4's chief operating officer.
France is perhaps the ideal country for such an agreement, as about 70 percent of its electricity is produced by nuclear power.
"This initiative is fully aligned with EDF's commitment to supporting the development of datacenters in France and contributing to the country's energy and industrial sovereignty," said EDF Group executive director Marc Benayoun.
Earlier this year, EDF offered bit barn operators access to suitable sites on its own land for developing new campuses, with "a favorable situation" for connection to the electrical grid, reducing the time required to complete projects by several years.
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EDF was also among the partners for a giant AI datacenter campus to be built near Paris, announced earlier this year. The 1.4 GW site is the result of a joint venture formed by Nvidia, Mistral AI, the French national investment bank, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) investment fund MGX, and is slated to be online by 2028.
Atomic power has been held up as a solution to the [12]rising energy requirements of the datacenter industry , driven by an insatiable demand for more infrastructure to feed the current AI craze.
Building new nuclear generating capacity in other regions will take years and so is not suitable to solve the pressing needs of the IT industry in the short-term.
"Undoubtedly, nuclear energy will serve as part of the world's energy mix for years to come," former Canalys principal ESG analyst Elsa Nightingale told The Register in May. "However, investing heavily in nuclear energy doesn't address the core issue. For one, nuclear projects have long lead times while AI's energy demands are coming now." ®
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I also thought France were having difficulties with their nuclear plants, as in they're all aging and aren't being replaced.
So it's interesting to me for them to put this demand on a network that has the potential to have less capacity going forward.
EDF is up the creek...
Correct, most of the fleet is of a similar age and coming up on their end of life. EDF has begged for extensions, but as last year proved they are all getting old and though historically reliable, they aren't as reliable as they used to be. We were advised by the government to expect unplanned outages last year - several reactors were offline for planned and unplanned maintenance at the same time and blackouts were expected.
EDF is fighting tooth and nail against renewables, as they are so much cheaper than their new ERP reactors, which are over a decade late and tens of billions over budget. The next generation reactors will obviously been cheaper and built on time (where have we heard that before?) - you just need to believe enough - and hand over another billion or ten to EDF...
This summer I visited remote Brittany, where France built on of their first nuclear power plants - it's still not been fully decommissioned - it will have spent more of its life being built and unbuilt than it did actually running. All that time not generating electricity it just sucks money in - and gives nothing back....
The French left and right both love nuclear power, but no one wants to pay the eyewatering cost of building the damn things...
I also thought France were having difficulties with their nuclear plants, as in they're all aging and aren't being replaced.
That's a can that's been kicked down the road for years, and now that road is turning into a dead end. Like France needs to do something real soon now. But one way of looking at it is EDF can go to the financial markets and say 'Look, we've got a long-term supply contract! Giff billions!'.. At which point the markets will probably point at 40MW vs the capacity EDF needs to replace, and laugh. And it's getting harder for the ECB to just print Euros and buy EDF bonds, especially with the state of EDFs finances.
But something needs to happen given the the number of countries (including the UK) who are dependent on French nuclear energy. Especially given the lead times on building new NPPs. Especially if those are French. Could always buy S.Korean reactors I guess as they seem to be able to build NPPs far faster and more cheaply than EDF can. Or there's China, Russia, and probably India. But we must buy the French EUreactor! French shareholders (and the French government) needs EU!
Same way we're* buying nuclear generated electricity from France. Same way people can go on 'green' tariffs for power. It only pays for X amount being added to the grid (assuming the grid can take it, and the generators are able to produce that much) - doesn't mean the power out of my wall socket was generated by wind or solar or nuclear.
Fun bit of info in all that that: With 'Green' power, if the generators fall short, they can trade in certificates (aka promissory notes) to say 'when we can generate extra, we'll pay you back'. Problem then is the stories of wind farms being paid to NOT generate power... makes me wonder what happens to all those certificates if any were traded.
* The UK, that is.
EDF puts a given amount of energy into the grid. Data4 take a given amount of energy out. Even if it were in some way possible to identify 40MW of the energy they take out as having been put in by EDF it would simply mean that that 40MW was unavailable for other users whose energy might then have to me supplied by burning fossil fuel.
And yet people have been paid to draw up such agreements and publicise them.