A renewable energy Ai data centre in the last coal mine

After coal an Ai Data centre. The mine being decommissioned, owned by the regional company Carbosulcis, located in Nuraxi Figus in south-western Sardinia, now that the mining season is over, is preparing to host a project involving the construction of an AI Data Centre, which will use renewable energies and an already available interconnection of 100 MW at Europe's largest mine site. Carrying out the operation will be Energy Vault, a company that has already launched the first phase of its gravitational electricity storage system, called 'EV-0', which uses the depths of the mine to store and produce energy as in a hydroelectric pumping plant.

The completion of the EV0TM power plant prototype, the company says, is scheduled for 2025, while the complete system will be ready by 2027-2028.

"In the meantime, the modular development system of the AI Data Centre, which will be ready in 2026, will allow for an immediate start-up with an initial capacity of 2MW, with progressive increments of 1MW up to a total of 100 MW," the company says. "This flexible architecture will ensure rapid deployment, stability in connection with the electricity grid, and a significant contribution to grid balancing, thanks to Energy Vault's advanced electricity storage platform. For the President of the Region Alessandra Todde, 'having a data centre dedicated to Artificial Intelligence is important for Sardinia, because it means investing in new technologies, giving legs to new development paths linked to the digital economy that our island needs. In addition, it means giving new impetus and a new productive life to the Nuraxi Figus mine and those who work there'.

The AI Data Centre, as the promoters point out, responds to the growing needs for data security, data sovereignty and clean energy, 'today essential for European development'. The project will leverage the new, recently completed Terabit ultra-fast fibre network in Sardinia, which will provide world-class digital connectivity for high-speed data processing and transmission. "With the support of President Todde and the Region of Sardinia," comments Robert Piconi, chairman and CEO of Energy Vault, "we are taking an important step towards bridging the gap created by the rapid expansion of AI Data Centres and AI-related workloads in the US and European ecosystem. Around the Coal Mine, there are also other projects that aim to take advantage of the infrastructure built over the years, worth millions of euros, consisting of driveable tunnels, shafts going up to half a kilometre deep, and a host of other usable structures.

"The region's idea is to pursue the reconversion of the site by enhancing the infrastructure," says Emanuele Cani, regional councillor for industry, "and the realisation of this project will be a very important element in achieving this goal.