Greece’s national electricity company, DEI, plans to invest €5.8 billion in one of Europe’s largest data centres at a former lignite mining site near Kozani in northern Greece, Bloomberg reported.
The project aims to transform the coal-dependent region into a technology and clean-energy hub as Greece phases out lignite-based electricity generation.
DEI plans to build a 300-megawatt data centre by the end of 2028, alongside renewable-energy projects in the area. Its capacity could rise to one gigawatt by 2031.
The company is already negotiating with major international cloud and digital-service providers to secure a tenant for the facility.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has promised more and better-paid jobs for Kozani, one of Greece’s poorest regions, and said the government would mobilise European funding to support its economic transition.
Local residents, however, say the replacement jobs promised after the government announced the coal phase-out in 2019 have yet to materialise. The region’s last lignite-fired power station, Ptolemais 5, is expected to stop using coal by the end of 2026.