Norway Green Energy pulls its 50MW Panay data center plan

Norway Green Energy has withdrawn its application for a 50MW data center in Oton, on the Philippine island of Panay. Data Center Dynamics reports that the application was pulled two days after a public consultation ended with the company's managing director cursing at reporters.

The withdrawal came on August 16. The preceding Friday, at a consultation in Abilay Sur, a barangay between Oton and Iloilo City, Daniel Stefan Robertsen, who called himself Norway Green Energy's managing director, was filmed telling journalists they were violating Philippine privacy laws by recording him. He first said that if his remarks were 'toxic,' the discussion should stop. Then he told them they lacked a 'brain' and, in vulgar language, to go away.

Robertsen's career covers crypto and telecom. A 2018 press release from Riot Platforms says he became president of Digital Green Energy, a Riot subsidiary, on January 24, 2018. He had earlier been chairman and CEO of Bitfury Norway and worked at Datacom Systems, Telenor, and Facebook. Public records do not say when he left Digital Green to form Norway Green Energy, and almost nothing is known about the company.

The site covered 10 hectares in Abilay Sur. DataCenterMap's listings show no data centers on Panay, so this would have been the island's first. The country's existing data centers sit mostly on Luzon, home to Manila. The withdrawal leaves Panay with no active proposal.

Outside the usual hubs, such a facility is small by hyperscale standards, but in a market with no local precedent, public sentiment can stop a project before grid and permitting reviews do. For a foreign developer, the community meeting is the first and final gate.