en.Wedoany.com Reported - Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall has recently signed agreements with European AI data center startup Project Enki and electrical services provider ABB Group to jointly explore the development of offshore data centers directly connected to offshore wind farms.
Under the cooperation agreement, Project Enki will be responsible for the development and operation of the offshore data centers, while Vattenfall will provide renewable energy generated from its offshore assets. The concept aims to directly utilize green electricity at the generation source to power the data centers. Nardi Polak, Head of Supplier Innovation at Vattenfall, stated that the project is exploring new combinations of existing technologies to consume renewable energy directly at the generation site, thereby utilizing wind farm capacity more efficiently.
Unlike traditional cloud data centers, these offshore facilities will be specifically designed for long-duration, compute-intensive processing tasks. During periods of lower wind power generation, some workloads will be delayed or reduced, establishing a more flexible match between power generation and computing demand. Paul Kunneman, Managing Director of Project Enki, noted that this approach harnesses wind energy that might otherwise be wasted, ensuring that electricity consumption does not come at the expense of household power supply.
The plan also addresses challenges in renewable energy production. Clean electricity that would otherwise be curtailed due to grid congestion or unfavorable market conditions will be consumed locally by the offshore data centers under predetermined commercial arrangements. The data centers' cooling systems utilize seawater, which partners believe can improve cooling efficiency while reducing energy consumption and associated carbon emissions.
The project is still in its early stages, with the partners focusing on identifying the first deployment site. A joint project team comprising Vattenfall, Project Enki, and ABB is evaluating the technical feasibility, economic viability, and social impact of the concept, including infrastructure requirements, operational feasibility, and potential benefits.
Vattenfall, a Swedish state-owned energy company, is also one of the largest wind power developers outside the European market, currently holding approximately 4.4 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in Europe. As land scarcity becomes increasingly prominent, the offshore data center concept is gaining attention. Last month, Chinese developer HiCloud launched its offshore wind-powered submarine data center off the coast of Shanghai, with a capacity of 24 megawatts, located in the Shanghai Lingang New Area. The project officially commenced in June 2025, was completed in October, and began full commercial operations last week after successfully completing preliminary trials in February.
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