Norway's Magnora and Sunly to form joint venture for data center in Risti

Norwegian listed company Magnora Data Center ASA (MDATA) is acquiring a 50 percent stake in Risti Kampus OÜ, a company owned by Estonian renewable energy firm Sunly. The venture aims to develop a 180-megawatt data center in Risti, located in Läänemaa county.

According to Sunly's press service, the planned data center will be able to connect both to the grid operator Elektrilevi and to a neighboring energy park operated by Sunly.

A hybrid energy park

Sunly's chief executive Priit Lepasepp said Risti is set to become a hybrid energy park, since the data center site sits next to the largest solar park in the Baltic states, where the company is also building a battery energy storage system and planning a wind farm. He noted that the data center, as a major electricity consumer, will tie all these elements into a single integrated system.

Within the joint venture, Sunly will continue to lead the project's implementation on the local level, including securing permits and developing energy infrastructure, while Magnora Data Center will finance the data center's further development.

As previously reported, Sunly applied for a detailed spatial plan this spring to build the largest data center in the Baltic states near the village of Risti in Lääne-Nigula municipality. The total construction cost of the project could exceed 1.7 billion euros.