The new 560MW substation project in Tamboré Campus is the largest substation dedicated to a data centre campus in Brazil, and further strengthens Scala's ability to support the increasing demand for data centre capacity
Scala breaks ground on 560MW Brazilian substation project. (Credit: American Public Power Association on Unsplash)
Brazilian hyper-scale data centre operator Scala Data Centres has announced construction on the 560MW SSUBTB03 power substation project at its Tamboré Campus in São Paulo, Brazil.
The substation project, which will address monthly energy consumption greater than that of the entire country of Nicaragua, is estimated to cost more than $80m.
Scala said that the project is the result of around three years of hard work, involving a multidisciplinary group, and support from the Brazilian government.
The project enhances the power reliability and resiliency of the Tamboré Campus and provides an opportunity to grow major cloud and content providers, said the data centre operator.
Scala co-founder and CEO Marcos Peigo said: “The magnitude of this project is compared to a few in the world and is the tip of the spear for a larger initiative that combines the demand of our customers for green data centres to support its ever-growing demand for cloud and AI with our vision for the country.
“Brazil, with its vast opportunities in the energy sector and ready-to-go transmission grid, is uniquely poised to be among the winners in the AI/ML race.
According to the Energy Research Company (EPE), which is responsible for the planning of the energy sector in Brazil, the last two years have seen high demand for data centre connections.
Also, the SSUBTB03 substation is said to be better than all other data centre connection requests registered with the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME).
In October last year, MME authorised the connection of Scala Data Centres to the transmission system, by issuing an ordinance.
The SSUBTB03 substation is scheduled to be completed in two stages, and the first stage is scheduled for December this year.
It complements the existing SSUBTB01 and SSUBTB02 substations, each with 60MW capacity.
Scala director of energy Fabio Yanaguita said: “A dedicated on-site substation enhances the reliability and quality of the power supply due to its direct connection to the national grid.”
Peigo added: “Scala, the same way we understood ahead of others in the region the impact of the pandemic in the digital infrastructure demand, take a pioneer and bold step again in enabling the development of the AI in Brazil.”