Uruguay signs $5.7bn Solaria deal for up to 500MW of solar-paired capacity

Uruguay has signed a $5.7 billion agreement with Solaria covering up to 500MW of data center capacity paired with solar generation. The first phase puts a 200MW data center alongside a 350MW solar project, with completion due in 2029.

The structure bundles load and supply into a single signed agreement rather than leaving a developer to secure a site and then hunt for power. That sequencing has been the sticking point in other markets this year. Near Turin, the mayor of Moncalieri halted a 576MW data center application that had been billed as the country's largest, on a 270,000 sq m former printing works that LCP bought for €9 million in 2022. In the UK, a Drax-backed bid to power a 1.2GW data center with biomass failed AI Growth Zone selection criteria, and Drax has pivoted to a 100MW project on grid power.

The two numbers in phase one measure different things: 350MW of solar generating capacity and 200MW of data center load. A compute load is a continuous draw; solar output is not, so the 350MW figure should not be read as firm supply for the 200MW facility.

If the $5.7 billion covers only the compute, the ceiling works out to about $11.4 million per megawatt of data center capacity. The coverage does not say whether the headline figure spans the data center, the solar plant or both, so that ratio is indicative at best and cannot be read as an all-in construction cost for either asset.

Other projects in the same pipeline have answered the power question contractually, with a utility in the middle. Microsoft's 20-year agreement with NiSource adds roughly 1.1GW to the utility's portfolio from 2028 under a large-load rate class that has the customer fund its own generation. AEP plans a 702MW Cheyenne project pairing Bloom Energy fuel cells with a 20-year Google PPA, alongside an eight-year agreement to buy up to 1.6GW of Mainspring units carrying a stated ceiling of up to $4 billion.

In the Uruguay deal the signatory on the other side is the state rather than an investor-owned utility, a different counterparty profile for anyone lending against either half of the package. How the two assets are owned and financed between Uruguay and Solaria is not set out in the coverage.

The 2029 date applies to phase one; nothing in the material sets a timetable for the capacity between 200MW and the 500MW ceiling.