Aragón is going through a unique moment: in just a few years it has gone from competing to attract data centers to announcing three new mega facilities promoted by Forestalia that aim to strengthen its position on the European cloud map. The announcement by the regional government comes in the midst of a race to attract technological investment, but also in a territory where the electrical grid works at its limit and each large project depends on decisions that have not yet been made. The result is a scenario as ambitious as it is full of unknowns, which will determine the real impact of this expansion.
How these digital complexes work. A data center is, in essence, a technological heart that stores and processes information for millions of users and companies. Every series that is streamed or every operation carried out in the cloud passes through servers that require stable power and constant cooling. That is why the choice of location is so relevant: electrical capacity and operational security are needed. Aragón has been gaining ground on that map and today is seen as a strategic option for new facilities.
The project. The Government of Aragon has detailed that the Búfalo Project includes three data centers in Magallón, Botorrita and Alfamén, backed by an investment of 12,048 million euros. The deployment includes DCM Data, DCM Dédalo and DCM Blue, whose works would begin between 2028 and 2029 and will extend for approximately eight years. According to official estimates, the construction will generate about 30,000 temporary jobs. In the operational phase, each facility will add hundreds of workers, with a total that clearly exceeds a thousand stable positions.
Aragón on the international board. The accumulated investments in data centers exceed 70,000 million euros and place the community in the same conversation as consolidated European hubs. According to the President of the Government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, the computing capacity that is being configured rivals that of Dublin and Paris and aspires to approach that of Frankfurt. The regional Executive also states that the data that will be managed will have a European scope, from Germany or France to Italy and the United Kingdom, reinforcing the international dimension of the project.
Distributed renewable self-consumption. The Government of Aragon presents self-consumption as a distinctive element of the Búfalo Project, since approximately half of the energy consumption will be associated with wind and photovoltaic parks powered by Forestalia. This volume of generation allows for a renewable supply, although it does not eliminate dependence on the general network, which will provide the rest of the energy. The underlying idea is to combine own generation with existing infrastructure to sustain large-scale facilities.
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The word “self-consumption” may lead one to think that data centers and renewable plants share the same physical space, but this is not the case. Forestalia is setting up parks in various regions of Zaragoza and Teruel, located where the natural resource is most favorable. The data centers, as we say, will be in Magallón, Botorrita and Alfamén, and the connection between both worlds is made entirely through the Red Eléctrica network. It is a distributed scheme that coordinates generation and consumption without a single energy campus.
A network to the limit. Aragón produces more electricity than it consumes and exports about 54% of its generation, but this abundance contrasts with a distribution network that works practically at maximum. A report published in September 2025 sets its occupancy level at 94.3%, well above the national average of 84.3%. This saturation leaves little room to incorporate large consumers such as data centers. The result is a paradox: available energy, but an infrastructure incapable of delivering it to all projects.
Projects that have already reached their peak. The bottleneck is not a future hypothesis, but a reality that already affects several operators. According to Heraldo, the data centers in the pipeline have requested more than 6,000 MW and only a part has firm access, with cases such as Vantage, which has 90 MW authorized despite aiming for 300. Microsoft also depends on tenders in saturated nodes. The Government itself recognizes that everything will be linked to Red Eléctrica’s planning and the decisions of the central Executive.
Water, a debate that is still open? The cooling of data centers has generated concern in Aragon since Amazon requested 48% more water at the end of 2024 for the complexes it already operates in the region. Ecologistas en Acción and the Tu Nube Seca Mi Río platform then warned of the water impact of these facilities in the midst of a structural drought. Azcón maintains that future Forestalia centers will use a closed circuit with “practically imperceptible” consumption and affirms that the debate “is over.” In any case, everything indicates that this matter remains under public scrutiny.
To facilitate the path of the Buffalo Project, the Government of Aragon has declared the initiative as of General Autonomous Interest, a figure that allows procedures to be simplified and the different administrations involved to be better coordinated. This declaration speeds up procedures, but does not resolve the main point of friction: the available electrical capacity. Hence, the regional Executive insists on its willingness to work with the central Government and Red Eléctrica, the only actors that can modify the network planning. Real progress will depend on those decisions.
The announcement of the three new data centers, together with the rest of the initiatives in the pipeline, places Aragón at a decisive moment to consolidate its presence on the European cloud map. The investment is notable and so is the promised employment, but much of the result will depend on decisions that are not entirely in the hands of the community. The region has shown intention and movement, although it remains to be seen what the real scope of this bet will be.
Images | İsmail Enes Ayhan | Jorge Azcón (X)
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