Enlight launches solar data farms Israel, Canada

Enlight’s plan: solar‑powered data farms in Israel and Canada

Enlight, the Israeli renewable‑energy developer, will build fully integrated solar‑powered data farms on income‑producing real‑estate assets in both Israel and Canada. The company announced the move after acquiring U.S. server‑farm specialist Sage for $50 million and said the new facilities will combine rooftop solar farms with colocation space for cloud and AI workloads. By pairing clean‑energy generation with high‑density computing, Enlight aims to sell both electricity and data‑center services from the same site.

Why data centers are turning to green power – a booming market

The global demand for data‑center capacity is exploding: analysts expect roughly 100 GW of new capacity worldwide between 2026‑2030, worth about $1.2 trillion in real‑estate value. In Israel, the data‑center market was valued at USD 1.68 billion in 2025 and is projected to more than double to USD 3.75 billion by 2035. This growth is driven by AI, cloud services, and the need for low‑latency connectivity, but it also raises electricity‑consumption concerns. Green data‑center projects, like Enlight’s, are seen as a way to meet the surge while keeping carbon footprints low.

The financial scale – investments and market size

Enlight’s acquisition of Sage adds a U.S. pipeline of server‑farm projects that can be retro‑fitted with solar arrays, accelerating its entry into the North‑American market. The venture is expected to attract significant capital, complementing the $500 million Nvidia‑backed mega‑campus planned for Ramot Menashe. Across the Middle East, the green‑data‑center market is projected to reach $9.21 billion by 2032, growing at a 19 % CAGR, indicating ample upside for early movers like Enlight.

How the technology works – solar + colocation in one footprint

Enlight’s integrated model installs utility‑scale photovoltaic (PV) panels on the rooftops of commercial buildings that already host colocation racks. The solar farm feeds power directly into the data‑center’s internal grid, reducing reliance on the national grid and allowing the operator to sell excess electricity back to the grid under feed‑in tariffs. This mirrors the approach announced in March 2025, where Enlight Renewables detailed a plan for an “integrated solar‑data‑center” that would generate up to 10 MW of clean power on‑site. The design also includes battery storage to smooth out intermittency, ensuring the servers receive a stable power supply.

What it means for Israel – renewable targets, tariffs and economics

For Israel, Enlight’s model aligns with the national goal of 30 % renewable electricity by 2030 and the interim 20 % target for 2025. Using typical Israeli commercial feed‑in tariffs of ₪0.41 /kWh and a central‑region solar yield of about 1,700 kWh per kW·year, a 10 MW solar‑powered data farm could generate on the order of tens of gigawatt‑hours per year, providing a substantial revenue stream from electricity sales. Each megawatt of solar avoids roughly 0.5 kg CO₂ per kWh, so a 10 MW facility would offset a large amount of emissions annually, comparable to the carbon sequestration of many thousands of trees (using the benchmark of 20 kg CO₂ per tree per year). By bundling power and space, Enlight can offer customers lower total‑of‑ownership costs and help the Electricity Authority meet its renewable‑energy mandates.

Outlook – the future of green data infrastructure

Enlight’s dual‑country rollout is a proof‑of‑concept that could inspire a wave of solar‑data‑center hybrids across the region. As AI workloads continue to demand more compute power, developers will likely seek sites that already generate clean energy to avoid future carbon‑pricing penalties. If Enlight’s first farms achieve the expected performance, the model could be replicated on many existing commercial rooftops, turning Israel’s and Canada’s built environment into a distributed power‑plus‑compute network. The next few years will reveal whether the economics hold up at scale, but the combination of strong market growth, supportive policy, and clear cost benefits makes Enlight’s venture a pivotal development in the green‑tech landscape.

Sources & further reading

• Is Israel's data center boom a growth engine or the next market bubble?
• Israel Data Center Market Size & Share Outlook to 2031
• Middle East Data Center Colocation Market Outlook & Forecast Report...
• Middle East Data Center Colocation Market Outlook & Forecast Report...
• Category: Update - DataX Connect