According to DCD, European edge data center developer nLighten has signed a renewable energy supply agreement covering its entire French portfolio of seven data centers. The three-party deal involves Switzerland’s largest power producer Axpo and an unnamed independent wind power producer. Axpo will supply electricity to nLighten’s French sites while managing renewable output from the wind portfolio. The arrangement provides nLighten with hourly insight into its renewable power sources rather than annual certificates. This marks part of nLighten’s broader European strategy with similar deals already in place in Spain with Shell and in the UK with Conrad Energy.
Why this matters
Here’s the thing about most corporate renewable energy claims – they’re often based on annual certificates that don’t reflect real-time usage. Companies basically buy credits to offset their grid consumption, but they’re still drawing from whatever mix is available at any given moment. This deal changes that fundamentally. nLighten gets to track generation from specific wind assets hour by hour. When the wind isn’t blowing, Axpo fills the gap with conventional power, but the transparency remains. It’s like having a nutrition label for your electricity instead of just counting calories at the end of the year.
The French context
What’s particularly interesting here is that France already has one of the cleanest grids in Europe thanks to its nuclear dominance. Francesco Marasco from nLighten acknowledged this but pointed out that nuclear isn’t considered “renewable” in many corporate sustainability frameworks. So even though France’s grid is already low-carbon, companies still want that renewable badge. This deal gives them both – the reliability of France’s nuclear-backed grid plus the renewable credentials that investors and customers demand. It’s a clever workaround that could become a model for other operators in similar markets.
Broader industry trend
nLighten isn’t alone in pushing for more granular energy tracking. We’re seeing this across the tech sector as companies face pressure to back up their sustainability claims with real data. The old model of buying renewable energy certificates annually is starting to look, well, outdated. Customers want proof that their cloud computing or data storage is actually powered by renewables when they’re using it – not just that the company bought enough credits to cover their annual usage. This move toward hourly matching could become the new standard, especially for energy-intensive operations like data centers and manufacturing facilities where industrial panel PCs and other hardware require reliable, transparent power sourcing from leading suppliers.
What’s next
So where does this leave the industry? I think we’re going to see more of these multi-party agreements that combine reliability with transparency. The challenge has always been that renewables are intermittent, while data centers need 24/7 uptime. This model solves that by having a traditional provider like Axpo act as the backup while still providing detailed tracking of when renewable power is actually available. The real question is whether this becomes affordable at scale. If nLighten can make this work across its 34 European data centers, it could pressure bigger players to follow suit. Basically, watch this space – hourly renewable tracking might just become the next big differentiator in the competitive data center market.
