Scala Data Centers invests in Serena Energia for wind power self-supply

Scala Data Centers acquired minority stakes in Serena Energia's renewables operations in exchange for wind power for its datacenters.

Brazil’s Scala, owned by DigitalBridge, is investing in special purpose entities (SPE) controlled by Serena (formerly Omega Energia) to operate two wind farms in Bahia state. The stakes acquired and the investment made were not disclosed.

The deal, filed this week with antitrust regulator Cade for approval, comes days after Scala raised 1.3bn reais (US$236mn) in green bonds. 

The two Serena operations invested in by Scala are Assuruá 4 Subholding II Energia and VDB (Ventos da Bahia) F3 Geração de Energia.

Scala’s energy head, Fabio Yanaguita, told BNamericas that the volume involved in the transaction practically triples Scala’s portfolio of contracts in the renewables area.

“The generation from the parks can be allocated to any Scala datacenter in Brazil, as per the company’s internal strategy,” said the executive. According to Yanaguita, the deal is limited to these projects and does not generate an exclusivity commitment with Serena for future agreements.

Serena’s Assuruá wind complex has over 808MW in installed capacity and is located in the municipalities of Xique-Xique and Gentio do Ouro. The complex is made up of 15 wind parks that together total 240 turbines. 

Assuruá 4 is the same operation invested in by Scala's rival Odata last year, as first reported by BNamericas.

With that investment, Odata claimed to have become the first hyperscaler datacenter company in Latin America to have 100% of the power consumption of its sites coming from direct participation in renewable energy projects.

Ventos da Bahia is a complex with over 182MW in installed capacity, distributed between seven projects with 108 wind turbines. It is in the municipality of Mulungu do Morro.

Serena is part of Brazil's asset manager Tarpon and develops activities in generation and sale of power resulting exclusively from clean energy sources.

Founded in 2002, Tarpon is an independent investment firm focused on public and private equities in Brazil.

According to BNamericas data, Serena is the second largest Brazilian company in number of renewable energy projects, with 139 developments tracked and 2,804MW of installed capacity contracted.

It trails only São Paulo-headquartered Pacto Energia, with 177 projects in its portfolio.

GROWING TREND

With the direct investment, Scala joins Odata and a growing group of big techs and major datacenter firms directly investing in renewable energy companies, in a model known as self-generation, or self-supply.

Datacenter companies have long bet on renewables, mostly solar and wind, for their ever-growing power consumption requirements. 

However, the most common model has been via power purchase agreements (PPAs) or international renewable energy certificates (IRECs), rather than equity investments. 

According to Cade, Scala claims that the transaction is intended to generate power for its own consumption and that it will remain an investor with the sole purpose of establishing itself as a "self-producer of a portion of the electricity that will be generated by Serena's wind projects." 

According to Scala, the equity acquisition does not involve control and nor does it have a competitive impact, and it requested that the watchdog's analysis be “summary.” 

DATACENTER DEMAND

Serena has around 90% of its 10-year assured energy output contracted. 

“As the leading energy supplier for tech companies in Brazil, efforts are being made to advance multiple transactions, aiming to become the leading provider of renewable energy solutions for high-performance computing and AI-related large loads,” Serena said in its Q2 financial statements this month.

“Recently, we started to supply 20MWa to a high-performance computing operation in Assuruá, and other similar deals are advancing. By year-end, we envision the possibility to surpass 150MWa of contracted energy for data processing and AI in Brazil, combining new and outstanding offtake agreements.”

The company is also working with several US-based clients to develop renewable energy supply models.

Serena's expectation is to secure new offtake agreements with tech companies in the following quarters.