Scala, Enel ink deal for LatAm datacenter power supply

Scala Data Centers, the Latin American datacenter group of US fund DigitalBridge, signed a long-term deal with Italy’s Enel for the power supply of existing and future regional datacenter projects.

The agreement secures at least 600MW of total power for Scala’s Tamboré hyperscale campus, in São Paulo state, and almost 1GW for other Brazilian and Latin American operations, including datacenter projects in development in Fortaleza, Santiago, Lima and Bogotá.

“This agreement guarantees all of our expansion, in a volume of power unprecedented in the industry. The focus is on delivering capacity,” Scala’s CEO Marcos Peigo told BNamericas.

With this secured capacity, the Tamboré campus will be among the largest datacenter campuses in Latin America and among the top 10 globally, according to Peigo. “By our market analysis, with this power supply, Tamboré is actually one of the six largest in the world,” he said.

Contract values were not disclosed, but Peigo said the deal covers all areas in which Enel operates as a power distributor concessionaire throughout the region and is not limited in time. The contract is not exclusive, meaning competitors could sign similar accords with Enel.

TAMBORÉ

Scala’s first vertical hyperscale site in Tamboré, the SP4, went live in August. 

With US$140mn in investments, SP4 is deemed Scala’s largest vertical (storied) datacenter in Latin America, with 13,000m2 built area across seven floors, and total power capacity of 18MW.

The company is also advancing its SP5 datacenter, expected to start operations in February, also in Tamboré.

Overall, Scala’s five operational datacenters – SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and CP1, in Brazil's Campinas – comprise 50MW of capacity. 

Elsewhere in Latin America, the company expects to move forward with the construction of its first sites in Chile, Mexico and Colombia in 2023.

Among the new projects, the company expects its datacenter campuses in Chile to go live in the first quarter of 2024.

The entire project comprises three clusters, or datacenter campuses, in central Chile: Curauma near Valparaíso, Lampa in Metropolitan region and in Huechuraba, a district of Santiago. The campuses will have combined capacity of 200MW and require investments of around US$400mn in their first phases. 

Scala’s datacenter bookings increased over 166% year-on-year in 3Q22, outperforming DigitalBridge’s datacenter bookings in Asia (up 60%) and North America (128%), and only behind Europe (220%).