Templus has filed a motion to reject outright the draft Royal Decree that will regulate data centers in Spain, calling on the government to withdraw the text and open a new round of dialogue with the industry. The operator backs this request with 23 specific comments, including protecting projects that already hold access and connection permits, raising the regulation’s threshold from 1 to 10 MW, and revisiting the renewable coverage obligations. Its position adds to the criticism raised by other operators, investors, and government bodies after the public comment period closed on September 10.
Templus’s public comments in 20 seconds
- Templus is asking for the draft to be withdrawn and for a new framework to be drafted with input from the industry.
- The company has filed 23 comments in addition to its motion to reject the draft outright.
- It proposes raising the general application threshold from 1 MW to 10 MW.
- It calls for protecting projects that already hold access and connection permits.
- Renewable supply and its additionality requirement account for much of the disagreement.
The text that triggered this reaction is not an approved regulation yet. Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) opened the draft’s public comment period on August 27 and ended up extending the submission deadline to 5:00 p.m. on September 10. It now falls to the ministry to review the comments and, if warranted, revise the document before continuing with its approval process.
The government justifies stepping in by pointing to the rapid growth in requests for electrical capacity. According to data published by MITECO, since late 2023 the transmission grid operator has granted data centers more than 6 GW of access capacity, while distribution networks are estimated to have granted roughly another 6 GW since 2020.
The scale involved explains part of the debate. Spain wants to attract data centers, cloud infrastructure, and capacity for artificial intelligence, but the government considers it necessary to prevent that demand from crowding out electrical capacity needed for other uses or driving up system costs.
Templus shares the overall sustainability and sovereignty goals, but disputes the approach chosen to achieve them.
From 1 MW to 10 MW: Templus Questions the Regulation’s Scope
As a general rule, the draft applies its obligations to data centers with an access capacity of 1 MW or more.
MITECO justifies that threshold because it considers that, above that level of demand, the impact on the grid and on resources such as water and land becomes significant. The government also uses access capacity, rather than IT capacity, because the resource it is trying to manage is precisely the available capacity on the transmission and distribution networks.
Templus proposes raising the threshold to 10 MW.
The difference is considerable. A 1 MW threshold covers regional facilities and relatively small proximity centers, while raising it to 10 MW would leave many smaller-scale facilities outside most of the new regime.
This issue is particularly relevant to Templus’s business model. The company operates a distributed network of regional centers and has continued expanding facilities during 2026 in markets such as Barcelona, Valencia, and Málaga. In May, it opened a campus in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat that combines 10 MW across two interconnected data centers and serves more than 200 companies.
Templus’s request goes beyond size. The company is also calling for protection for projects that already hold access and connection permits, so that new regulation doesn’t alter the conditions under which earlier investments were planned.
This is where one of the most significant legal conflicts arises.
The draft states that the requirements will apply to centers that connect to the grid after the future Royal Decree takes effect. For part of the industry, that could reach projects that have been in development for years, have already invested money, and hold permits, but have not yet connected.
Templus believes this creates legal uncertainty and could affect investments that are currently underway.
The concern isn’t unique to the company. Spain DC and other industry players have raised similar arguments, while the regional government of Aragón has requested a comprehensive review of the proposal over its potential impact on projects already in the pipeline.
The Renewable Debate Goes Beyond Buying Green Electricity
Energy is probably where the government and the industry disagree the most.
MITECO wants new data centers to back 80% of their energy consumption with new renewable generation during every hour they operate. The proposal thus combines two concepts: additionality and hourly matching.
That’s not the same as buying as much renewable electricity annually as the center consumes.
A data center runs 24 hours a day and keeps a relatively steady demand. A solar plant produces during certain hours, and its output changes depending on the time of year and weather conditions.
Hourly matching forces renewable generation and consumption to be brought closer together in each period, while additionality seeks to ensure that consumption is backed by new renewable capacity, rather than simply contracting installations that already existed.
Templus disputes this approach.
Ignacio T. Velilla, CEO and co-founder of the company, had already publicly criticized the requirement to tie new renewable generation to data center consumption before filing the comments. His argument is that Spain has periods with renewable generation that can’t be integrated into the grid, and that steady demand from these facilities can help make use of some of that surplus.
The government looks at the problem from a different angle. It argues that having renewable surpluses during certain hours doesn’t guarantee enough renewable energy during every hour of the year. If intensive, steady demand grows faster than new generation and storage capacity, it could increase the need for gas-fired generation during certain periods.
Both arguments can technically coexist: a power system can register renewable curtailment during some hours and need firm generation during others.
That’s why the real disagreement lies in whether the proposed obligation is proportionate and technically workable for data centers, or whether more flexible mechanisms could achieve the same goal.
What Templus Is Asking For, Versus the Current Draft
| Issue | Draft Submitted for Public Comment | Templus’s Position |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Continue with the Royal Decree after the comment period | Withdraw the draft and reopen dialogue |
| General threshold | From 1 MW of access capacity | Raise it to 10 MW |
| Existing projects | May reach facilities connecting after it takes effect | Protect projects with permits already granted |
| Renewables | Additionality and hourly matching | Review or remove the proposed additionality requirement |
| Sustainability | Energy and water requirements | Keep the goals, with proportionate conditions |
| Regulation | Spain-specific framework | Greater alignment and coordination with the EU framework |
Templus makes these requests as part of its 23 comments, with the withdrawal of the draft remaining its main demand.
Rafael Castrillo Calls for Regulation Built Together With the Industry
Rafael Castrillo Maortua, Templus’s Director of Marketing, Communications, and Business Development, has publicly argued on LinkedIn that the debate shouldn’t be read as the industry rejecting environmental requirements.
His position is that regulation aimed at improving sustainability shouldn’t undermine Spain’s digital competitiveness or create uncertainty around investments that were already committed.
Castrillo is calling for a new round of dialogue to build a framework that the industry sees as balanced and effective, developed jointly with the data center industry.
That’s an important distinction, since the government’s own draft starts from a positive assessment of the sector.
MITECO describes data centers as infrastructure necessary for the digitalization of the economy, and acknowledges that Spain’s location, connectivity, and availability of renewables give it an opportunity to attract this kind of investment.
The dispute, then, isn’t over whether Spain needs data centers. It’s over how many can connect, under what conditions, and who bears the additional costs their demand might place on the power grid.
Ignacio T. Velilla sums up Templus’s position from another angle. The CEO states that the company shares the goals of “sustainability, resilience, and digital sovereignty,” but is calling for regulation that is technically workable and compatible with investment and the country’s competitiveness.
Templus itself had already warned, before the comment period closed, that in its view the draft would put the Spanish market at a disadvantage compared with other European countries.
Sustainability and Competitiveness Aren’t Necessarily at Odds
The regulatory standoff raises a broader question for Spain’s digital infrastructure.
Data centers need large amounts of electricity, grid availability, land, connectivity, and, depending on their design, water. At the same time, they are the physical infrastructure that cloud services, digital platforms, and a growing share of artificial intelligence workloads run on.
Spain has some particularly favorable conditions: available renewable generation, international fiber connections, a geographic position between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and a fast-growing market.
But having abundant renewable generation doesn’t automatically solve the electricity problem.
Producing enough megawatt-hours over the course of a year is one thing; delivering them where and when they’re needed, with enough transmission, distribution, storage, and backup capacity, is another.
From an independent cloud infrastructure standpoint, this is one of the points worth keeping in view in the debate. For operators like Stackscale, co-founded by David Carrero Fernández-Baillo and specialized in private cloud infrastructure, the availability of data centers and electrical capacity is part of the physical chain that makes it possible to deliver digital services in Spain. Regulation that alters the construction or expansion of that infrastructure ends up having effects beyond the building’s owner: it can potentially affect cloud providers, telecom operators, technology companies, and customers who need local capacity.
At the same time, reserving electrical capacity for projects that never get built doesn’t help that chain either.
Hence one possible way to strike a balance would be to better distinguish speculative projects from ones backed by investment, financing, permits, and verified commitments to build, without turning grid access into an indefinite reservation.
The government itself explains that one of its goals is precisely to distinguish solid, viable projects from those that might tie up a scarce resource without ever materializing.
There’s also room to debate the sustainability mechanisms on technical grounds without questioning the environmental goal itself. Additionality, long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs), storage, demand flexibility, siting near generation, use of surplus power, or contributions to grid infrastructure can all be examined.
The outcome matters because investment is mobile.
A cloud or artificial intelligence project that hasn’t yet built its infrastructure can compare Spain with Portugal, France, Italy, or other European markets. Electricity, connectivity, and land all matter, but so do administrative timelines and the predictability of the rules over the years it takes to develop a facility.
The public consultation has made clear that there’s a considerable gap between the initial text and a significant part of the industry. Templus has chosen the most forceful position: withdraw the draft, reopen negotiations, and draft a different framework, without giving up on submitting 23 specific changes in case the government decides to move ahead with the process anyway.
The comment period closed on September 10. It’s now up to the government to decide which of the objections to incorporate.
The resulting text will determine more than just the environmental conditions for the next wave of data centers. It will also settle which projects can access a power grid whose capacity has become one of the most contested resources in Spain’s new digital economy.
