A Second Mega Data Centre Passes Abrantes Council, and the Two Together Could Use 19 Times the Whole Council's Electricity

Abrantes council has given a unanimously favourable opinion to a prior information request for a second large data centre in its territory, and the environmental association Quercus responded on Wednesday with a demand that no licence be issued until a full environmental impact study is done, covering both projects together rather than each on its own.

The arithmetic behind that demand is the reason the story matters beyond the Médio Tejo. Taken at their announced capacities, the two data centres would draw more electricity than the entire council of Abrantes consumes today, by a wide margin.

Two projects, one grid connection point

• The new one: promoted by the Hyperion group, near the Alvega roundabout. Roughly 151,000 square metres of footprint and 287,000 square metres of built area, with an announced 200 MVA electrical connection to the future Pego switching station. It has been classified a Projeto de Interesse Nacional (Project of National Interest, PIN), a status that shortens procedural deadlines.
• The one already under way: promoted by EDC ONE, on land facing the former Pego coal-fired power station. Approved in September 2025 under a Projeto de Interesse Municipal (Project of Municipal Interest, PIM), with tax exemptions worth 16.2 million euros.
• Announced power: 20 MW for Alvega and 300 MW for EDC ONE at Pego. Both figures are maximum available capacity, not continuous draw.

Quercus ran the numbers at a deliberately conservative 30 percent average utilisation of installed capacity. On that basis the two sites together would consume around 841 GWh a year, about 5.7 times all the electricity Abrantes used in 2024 (148.8 GWh). At full capacity the combined figure reaches roughly 2.8 TWh a year, close to 19 times the council's current annual consumption.

The water question sits on a river already under stress

Data centres of this size are also intensive water users, and the receiving basin is the Tejo. Quercus points to the Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (Portuguese Environment Agency) own diagnosis for the Tejo and Ribeiras do Oeste basin for the fourth planning cycle, 2028 to 2033, which records a water exploitation index of 40 percent on the river. The association also notes that roughly 60 percent of surface water bodies and 40 percent of groundwater bodies in the basin remain below Good status.

Its demands are specific. An impact study before any political or administrative green light, not deferred to the licensing stage. A cumulative study assessing both projects together on water, the regional grid, local temperature, farmland and forest lost, and water and noise pollution. No favourable opinion from the APA or the CCDR-LVT while conditions currently flagged as "favourable with conditions" remain unresolved. A reassessment of the Abrantes Zona Livre Tecnológica (Technological Free Zone), which the association says would otherwise place more than half the council under a regime designed for experimental and transitional uses. Extended consultation with in-person sessions at Alvega and Concavada. And enforceable mechanisms to deliver tangible benefits to local communities, as the national plan itself envisages.

A national plan meeting its first hard cases

Quercus calls the Plano Nacional de Centros de Dados (National Data Centre Plan) too optimistic, arguing it acknowledges that mature European markets have hit energy, environmental and territorial constraints, then reframes that caution as a strategic opportunity for Portugal rather than examining why the constraints appeared. Ireland and the Netherlands are the cautionary examples it names.

This is now a recognisable sequence. Portugal's national plan targets 1 GW by 2030. The Sines project is entangled in a court fight over seawater. Azambuja refused national-interest status to a two-billion-euro proposal this month. Abrantes has said yes twice. The variable is not the technology; it is what each council is willing to trade, and Abrantes, which counted 16 million euros in storm damage last year and lost the Pego plant's jobs, has an obvious reason to say yes.

What This Means for Expats

• Consultation is your entry point: if a project of this size is proposed near you, the APA participation portal accepts submissions from any resident, in Portuguese, and the count is published. Local opposition registered this way has changed outcomes.
• PIN and PIM status compress the timetable: both labels shorten deadlines, so the window to comment is narrower than on an ordinary planning file. Watch for the classification, not just the project.
• Property implications are real but slow: a 300 MW site brings construction traffic, substations and transmission lines. If you are buying rural land in the Médio Tejo, the Pego grid corridor is now a material search item.
• Water is the constraint to track: a 40 percent exploitation index means the basin is already classed as under stress. Restrictions in drought years fall on households and agriculture as well as industry.
• Jobs are not the trade-off they were: data centres are capital-intensive and thin on permanent staff, which is why Quercus is pressing for legally binding community benefits rather than employment promises.

Nothing is licensed yet. The prior information request is a favourable municipal opinion, not a permit, and the APA and the CCDR-LVT have still to be heard. Whether the two Abrantes projects are assessed as one cumulative case or as two separate files is the decision that will shape everything that follows.