Renewable energy companies fuel Brazilian data center boom, investigation finds

An investigation by The Intercept Brasil and Mongabay finds that renewable energy companies filed nearly two-thirds of the 68 pending requests to connect data centers to Brazil's power grid as of December 2025. The companies say data centers offer stable, long-term buyers for power the grid often can't absorb, after curtailment cost generators an estimated $617 million in the first half of 2025 alone.

President Lula signed a law in September exempting qualifying data centers from equipment taxes, and the government's trade agency has been courting U.S. investment under a green-host pitch. At least 29 municipalities slated for data centers overlap with Quilombola or Indigenous communities, including a Bahia wind project seeking to feed nine data centers near a Quilombola territory.

Analysts quoted in the investigation note the arrangement lets companies advertise unlocked renewable capacity without specifying who actually benefits from it, since no comparable investment is being made in transmission or storage that would let the power serve Brazilian households instead.

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