The Italian town of Figline Valdarno, southeast of Florence, could host a new data center integrated into a renewable energy and circular economy complex. Comtel and H2-Era Green Valley have signed an agreement to develop a facility whose power would come from an 84 MW photovoltaic plant, while the residual heat from the servers would be reused in other activities within the same complex.
The key points of the Florence data center in 20 seconds
- Comtel and H2-Era Green Valley are planning a data center in Figline Valdarno, Tuscany.
- An 84 MW solar plant would be its main power source.
- The heat from the servers would be utilized in a vertical farm.
- The project has not yet disclosed IT capacity, surface area, investment, or construction timeline.
li>Excess energy would be used to produce green hydrogen.
The project is part of the transformation of an old industrial site previously occupied by a Bekaert factory. The Belgian company announced in 2018 the closure of the plant, which produced steel cable for tire reinforcement, resulting in 318 job losses. The site was later acquired by a consortium led by Ge-Group to develop H2-Era Green Valley.
The proposal is particularly interesting because of how it aims to connect digital infrastructure, power generation, and energy recovery. However, the label of “zero-impact” data center comes from its promoters and should be seen as a project goal, not as an independent certification that the facility will have no environmental impact.
Additionally, some key data points are still missing to determine its true scale. Details such as IT capacity in megawatts, site size, and construction costs have not been disclosed.
A data center connected to an energy complex
H2-Era Green Valley proposes to utilize different energy streams and resources within a single industrial site.
The centerpiece would be an 84 MW photovoltaic installation. According to the promoters, solar production would meet the electrical needs of the future data center, and any surplus could be used in an electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen.
The scheme continues with the reuse of byproducts. The oxygen generated during electrolysis would be used in a closed-loop aquaculture facility dedicated to salmon production. The residual heat from the servers would be recovered to provide heating and cooling to a vertical farm.
This approach seeks to address one of the challenges facing data centers: a significant portion of the electricity used by servers ends up as heat that must be dissipated through cooling systems.
Reusing that heat for other purposes allows capturing energy that would normally be wasted, though its feasibility depends on factors such as available temperature, distance to the heat consumer, demand consistency, and necessary infrastructure for transportation.
The Figline Valdarno proposal has an advantage in this respect: the heat consumer would be part of the same industrial complex.
It is also important to distinguish between the 84 MW capacity of the solar plant and the future IT capacity. Having a solar plant with such a nominal capacity does not mean the data center will have 84 MW of IT load. Solar generation is also variable over 24 hours, so details on nighttime supply, low-generation periods, storage, and how the complex interacts with the grid are still to be defined.
Comtel would directly operate the data centers
The agreement also represents a significant step for Comtel. Founded in 1992 and based in Milan, the Italian company specializes in systems and infrastructure integration for ICT (Information and Communications Technology), including data centers.
If built, the Figline Valdarno facility would be the first data center operated directly by Comtel, according to publicly available information about the project.
Mattia Conti, the company’s CEO, stated after signing the memorandum of understanding that market growth is increasing demand for providers capable of handling full projects—from design and construction to ongoing infrastructure management.
H2-Era Green Valley, on its part, describes the data center as a new component in regenerating the former industrial site.
The regeneration plan predates Comtel’s announcement. Municipal documents from Figline e Incisa Valdarno already described H2-Era Green Valley as an initiative to reindustrialize the old Bekaert plant through green hydrogen production, a vertical farm, aquaculture, and photovoltaic generation. A municipal document from 2024 valued the total planned investment at €170 million, but that figure referred to the earlier H2-Era Green Valley project, not the new Comtel data center.
Therefore, that estimate cannot be used to gauge the current digital infrastructure costs.
Florence as a small market compared to Milan and Rome
Choosing Tuscany is somewhat unconventional within Italy’s data center landscape.
Italy currently has around 262 registered facilities across 50 markets, according to Data Center Map. The concentration is high: Milan has 99 data centers, and Rome has 28.
Florence is far behind those figures. Data Center Map reports just three facilities in the city, including sites in Sesto Fiorentino and Prato.
This makes the Figline Valdarno project quite different from the major digital infrastructure hubs around Milan.
Its approach also isn’t limited to procuring renewable energy through power purchase agreements. Instead, it aims to physically integrate generation, consumption, hydrogen production, and thermal utilization within a single complex.
However, much remains unknown about the final layout of the data center. The project still lacks necessary permits and details such as IT capacity, electrical design, energy storage, redundancy levels, site size, cooling technology, connectivity, investment, and construction and commissioning timelines.
These details will be essential to assess whether H2-Era Green Valley can transition from a conceptual circular economy plan to daily operation of a real data center.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where will Comtel’s new data center be built?
It is planned for Figline Valdarno, within the municipality of Figline e Incisa Valdarno, southeast of Florence, in Tuscany. It would occupy part of the former Bekaert industrial site.
Will the data center run solely on solar energy?
The promoters claim that a photovoltaic installation will meet its energy needs, but details on storage, backup power, and grid connection are still undisclosed. The planned solar plant will have a capacity of 84 MW.
What will happen with the heat generated by the servers?
The project includes recovering residual heat from the data center for thermal needs in an integrated vertical farm within H2-Era Green Valley.
When will it be operational?
No opening date has been announced yet. Nor have the final IT capacity, site size, or construction costs been disclosed.
via: hydronews.it
