Thymos readies calls for datacenter renewable self-supply energy projects

Brazilian consultancy Thymos Energia expects to launch up to five requests for proposals aimed at energy companies for the self-generation, or self-supply, of renewable sources on behalf of datacenter groups during the first quarter of 2025.

Several more are expected for the following quarters.

The segment is one of the main new business bets for Thymos, which specializes in advisory, structuring and management of energy projects for companies – including, and increasingly, datacenter firms.

“We’ve seen a lot of use of the self-production model of energy to serve these datacenters. We’ve been working a lot on this front, one of our three main macro-trends for the coming years,” the company's new businesses director, Jovanio Santos, told BNamericas.

Thymos sees opportunities in three main fields for the short, medium and long term in the region: projects involving green hydrogen, projects involving storage and battery systems, and projects for datacenters.

Of the three, datacenters are seen as the most immediate.

Santos is also upbeat about the energy storage segment for the short-medium term, with the first auctions for this type of project to be launched by the Brazilian government next year.

Business model

With datacenters, Thymos works from establishing the most suitable point for the connection of the site to the basic power grid, to filing with the mines and energy ministry for such a connection.

Thymos then goes to the market to assess which energy generators are interested in supplying datacenter companies and provides technical support for contract discussions and due diligence.

To grow in the datacenter sector, the company has been working on two fronts. 

One is direct prospecting, proactively seeking out the players, including through interactions with industry associations such as ABDC.

The other is indirect, via professionals or energy companies with whom Thymos works or has worked in other segments and who end up recommending the consultancy for datacenter projects.

That was the case of V.tal.

V.TAL

Thymos was responsible for the long-term contract signed by the Brazilian digital infra firm with Atlas Renewable and Atiaia Renováveis for the self-supply of 100% solar energy for V.tal’s operations, primarily datacenters.

“We acted as the technical advisor for the project. It was quite challenging, given the complexity involved. This is one of the largest self-production energy projects in the country aimed at datacenters,” said Santos. 

The renewable agreements will result in the generation of 710GWh/y from Atlas' Draco solar complex in Arinos, Minas Gerais state, and 237GWh/y from Atiaia's Agreste solar complex in Tacaimbó, Pernambuco.

The photovoltaic plants are scheduled to begin operations in 2026.

According to V.tal, the energy generated by the plants will help prevent the emission of over 4Mt of CO2 between 2026 and 2041. V.tal announced the contract closing in November.

Brazil’s antitrust regulator Cade in late May approved a V.tal deal with Atlas, as well as with Atiaia Energia, for investments in renewables.

Any excess generation could be sold on the free market, it was said at the time.

V.tal would operate nine solar self-generation consortiums with Atlas. V.tal and Atiaia also formalized two consortiums through subsidiaries Sol do Agreste Geração de Energia and Solar do Nordeste Energia Renovável for self-production at the Sol do Agreste I, IV and V solar farms.

The facilities total 103MW and are in the municipalities of Tacaimbó and São Caetano in Pernambuco, according to Cade documents. V.tal does not mention the plants in its contract-signing announcement.

In an interview with BNamericas at the Mega Lobster site in October, Tecto CEO Pedro Fragoso said V.tal had closed two agreements to become a partner and self-supplier of renewables in energy parks. He also said that more were to come.

For Thymos, the opportunities are vast, mostly with major hyperscale datacenter providers, said Santos. The consultancy is not involved in projects with hyperscalers (big public cloud companies) themselves.

The company is also negotiating to advise on projects in other markets in Latin America. 

According to Santos, these are projects for off-grid supply, which is when a datacenter is not directly connected via the power utility to the main power grid and requires a combination of battery storage, renewable sources and others.

Market forecasts

To map the size of opportunities in the field, Thymos Energia carried out a study that forecast total investments in Brazil's datacenter infrastructure will reach 60bn reais (US$10bn) by 2030.

The Brazilian government identifies demand for 9GW of new datacenter projects by 2035, encompassing 22 projects in different states.

Thymos' full study can be seen here, in Portuguese.