Pelagos responds to environmental concerns over £1.8bn data centre plans

Pelagos Data Centres, the company behind the North Mole £1.8bn data centre, sought on Thursday to address concerns raised by environmental groups and residents who live near the proposed development site.

The company issued a statement two days ahead of a demonstration against the project and the Government's unrelated harbour reclamation scheme, and amid mounting concern about the impact of the data centre.

An online petition opposing the project has secured over 1,800 signatures and has the support of the Environmental Safety Group (ESG).

Separately, marine conservation charity The Nautilus Project (TNP) said it opposed the plans over the potential impact of seawater cooling on the marine environment.

The demonstration is planned for this Saturday, November 7, at 11am in Casemates to highlight concerns regarding the Westview reclamation, construction, pollution, the "selling of public land" and the Pelagos data centre.

The concerns from the ESG and the petition include energy demand and infrastructure, noise and public health, heat generation, water use, electronic waste and hazardous materials, backup generators and air quality, and land use.

But Pelagos said it wanted Gibraltarians to have access to clear and comprehensive information about the proposed 250MW facility, which marks “the biggest foreign direct investment in Gibraltar’s history” at no cost to the taxpayer.

Pelagos said project was being designed with environmental responsibility central to its plans and outlined a series of measures relating to energy consumption, cooling, noise and marine ecology.

The company said the facility would not draw electricity from Gibraltar’s grid.

“It is expected to run on 100% renewable energy from renewable resources meeting 2030 net zero emissions targets for Gibraltar with back-up generation on site,” Pelagos said.

The company added no further detail on that point but earlier this year, Sir Joe Bossano told Parliament that the Pelagos project would only be viable if Gibraltar can import electricity because the Rock cannot generate enough power at a competitive cost.

Sir Joe said an undersea cable linking Gibraltar to Morocco could offer a solution, and that in turn Gibraltar could also potentially source electricity from North Africa.

Pelagos said it would publish documents associated with the planning application in the coming weeks, ahead of the proposal being submitted to the Gibraltar Government.

The Nautilus Project has raised concerns that using seawater to cool the development could result in heat generated by the data centre being discharged into the Bay of Gibraltar around the clock for the life of the project.

According to marine conservation charity, almost all the electricity used by a data centre ultimately becomes heat.

At the proposed development’s full capacity, TNP said this would amount to around 250MW of heat, about three times the capacity of Gibraltar’s North Mole power station.

But Pelagos said the main cooling infrastructure will use a closed loop liquid cooling system.

“It works in a similar way to a car radiator or a fridge - once filled, the same liquid circulates continuously, and no additional water is needed for normal operations,” Pelagos said.

“If outside temperatures stay above a set threshold for a sustained period, supplementary cooling will be brought into use.”

“This does use additional water, but it includes a recycling loop, so the water is reused rather than discharged after a single pass.”

The company added that the water supply would be designed not to impact the local community or ecology.

“The servers produce heat, but that heat is captured by the closed-loop cooling system and released through heat-rejection equipment rather than being absorbed by the ground around the site,” Pelagos said.

“This meets acceptable levels stipulated by the appropriate authorities and Pelagos will explore the potential to repurpose waste heat for community use.”

The proposed development has also prompted questions about its potential impact on marine life.

Pelagos said an independent survey carried out by its environmental consultancy recorded a colony of 1,388 Mediterranean ribbed limpets along the North Mole revetment next to the site.

Following a specialist assessment, the company said it had engaged ecological specialists to undertake the removal, relocation and monitoring of any ribbed limpets that could be affected by the development.

The limpets would be moved to the nearest designated marine nursery, it said.

Concerns have been raised about the noise produced by the data centre and an online petition has called for an independent assessment of the potential impact on nearby resident's sleep quality, anxiety and stress, mental wellbeing, cardiovascular health, and overall quality of life.

The company also said the facility would contain equipment producing “a minor amount of noise”, mainly from cooling plant and back-up generators.

“It is being designed so that this noise is contained within the buildings envelope and does not disturb neighbouring homes in any way,” Pelagos said.

Pelagos added that regular sustainability and environmental performance audits would also be carried out.

“The data centre will house the servers that store and process data and run AI computing workloads for organisations in Gibraltar and further afield, in both the public and private sectors,” Pelagos said.

“It will be built to international standards, with a dedicated security operations centre monitoring the site around the clock. Everything in the building exists to keep those servers running: a reliable power supply, cooling to remove the heat they produce, fast connections to the rest of the world, and security to protect the data inside.”

The company estimates the project would support around 500 jobs during construction and around 100 permanent roles once operational.

The company hopes construction will start in 2027 and an online community survey is expected to be launched once construction is under way, asking residents how the project should prioritise its support.

Pelagos is also exploring a training scheme intended to give young Gibraltarians opportunities to learn and train in the sector. The company said the proposal would be considered with the Gibraltar Government in the coming months.

This newspaper had requested an interview with a Pelagos representative earlier this week after reporting on the concerns raised by environmental groups.

The company responded by issuing the statement and has offered an interview over email, though not in person. We have requested a face-to-face interview again.

Christian J.A. Ryan, President for Gibraltar Operations at Pelagos Data Centres, said that the project would place Gibraltar at the centre of digital infrastructure required by the artificial intelligence economy.

“This landmark project puts Gibraltar at the centre of the digital infrastructure that the AI economy depends on,” Mr Ryan said in a statement.

“It will be the biggest Foreign Direct Investment in Gibraltar’s history, that is something for all of us to be proud of for a place whose history has been shaped by its position on the world's trade and communications routes in the past and now into the future.”

Mr Ryan said the company recognised the strong interest the project was attracting locally and welcomed the opportunity to share further information in the coming weeks and months.

“We believe Gibraltarians should have access to clear, comprehensive information about the project so they can form their own views,” he said.

He also thanked the Pelagos team, the Gibraltar Government, the Ministry of Defence and other stakeholders involved in the project.

“Continuous cross collaboration is paramount when dealing with such a highly sensitive, complex engineering project such as this one that will deliver significant benefits for Gibraltar and its communities for the coming decades in an environmentally sound manner, without drawing on Gibraltar’s electricity production,” Mr Ryan said.