{
  "id": 17909615,
  "title": "The electricity bill will increase by 2 billion a year if the data center decree derails",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/03/la-factura-de-la-luz-se-encarecera-en-2-000-millones-al-ano-si",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-03T04:45:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "El Pais Economia",
    "slug": "el-pais-economia",
    "url": "https://elpais.com/economia/2026-11-03/la-factura-de-la-luz-se-encarecera-en-2000-millones-al-ano-si-descarrila-el-decreto-de-centros-de-datos.html"
  },
  "original_language": "es",
  "account": "A report by PyPSA Labs warns that allowing data centers to connect without restrictions in Spain could increase electricity bills by around 2,000 million euros per year. This is due to the expected rise in fossil gas consumption by thermal power plants to meet the electricity demand of the data centers. Without regulations requiring these facilities to back up their consumption with clean energy, the wholesale electricity market price may increase by almost 8 euros per megawatt-hour. This would affect all consumers in the country.",
  "summary": "A modelling study of the Spanish electrical system calculates that allowing the massive connection of ‘data centers’ without requiring them to use hourly clean energy will increase electricity by almost eight euros per megawatt-hour due to the additional burning of gas.",
  "key_points": [
    "Electricity bill could surge by 2 billion euros annually",
    "Lack of clean energy regulation threatens Spanish grid",
    "Thermal plants would burn fossil fuels to meet demand"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Failing to mandate clean energy synchronization for data centers forces a reliance on fossil fuels that shifts the massive costs of digital expansion onto every Spanish electricity consumer.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}