Brazil’s three main natural resources are currently oil, hydropower and minerals (such as gold and bauxite), but wind energy is growing rapidly. Just as the Iberian Peninsula’s solar panels led to negative energy prices or China’s excess wind power, Brazil has inadvertently created excess energy, attracting the attention of AI data center developers.
In Brazil, favorable government incentives have led to massive investments in solar and wind power, so much so that at one point in 2025, plants were generating a surplus with some wasting 70% of it. That same year, cryptocurrency mining companies flocked to the country, seeing dollar signs instead of a surplus of renewable energy. Since the new goose that lays the golden eggs are AI data centers, they could start popping up quite quickly across Brazil. In fact, Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy received 68 requests from companies wanting to “plug” data centers into the power grid. The fact that 65% of these requests come from renewable energy suppliers themselves is no surprise.
Renewable energy providers often shut down operations when excess electricity production becomes financially unfeasible or, in the case of Brazil, when requested by the grid operator. Known as a discount, the country’s energy companies lost up to $612 million. To escape these losses, many companies have formed partnerships with different data center operators. Perhaps a more worrying trend is that as many as 36 renewable energy companies have decided to open their own data centers.
Why are experts opposed to it?
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Just one small Brazilian city, Gentio do Ouro (11,000 inhabitants), received 12 requests to connect data centers to the central network. In addition to the wind farms (operated by the aforementioned Serena Energia), the city also has a data center, while two are planned to be built. However, this is not the first time that data centers have harnessed renewable energy. An AI and Bitcoin mining facility connected directly to a wind farm in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
For Gentio do Ouro, instead of trying to strengthen the transmission network to better use excess energy, everything will go to energy-hungry data centers. At the same time, some city residents have limited access to electricity. Worse still, despite the restrictions, energy companies are building even more wind turbines, which could lead to more data centers and, therefore, necessitate the construction of additional wind farms. Unfortunately, residents themselves rarely benefit from these developments, and given all that a small town has to endure, this could be a disaster for thousands or even more people in Brazil – and they are powerless to change the situation. Worse still, some residents suffer from sleep disturbances and mental health problems, known as “wind turbine syndrome.”
