{"id":539425,"date":"2026-07-22T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539425\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T23:41:08","slug":"mercury-spends-53m-on-stake-in-datagrid-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539425\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury spends $53m on stake in Datagrid NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the country’s biggest electricity companies has thrown its weight behind a firm planning to build a large data centre in Southland.<\/p>\n

Mercury has invested US$30 million (NZ$53m) for a 12.7 percent minority equity stake in Datagrid NZ.<\/p>\n

Announcing the investment, Mercury said Datagrid NZ was developing “what is expected to be New Zealand’s most advanced large-scale data centre project”.<\/p>\n

The 360 megawatt project has been slated for North Makarewa, Southland, and won resource consent<\/a> from the region’s councils earlier this year.<\/p>\n

It has support from the region’s mayors, but has drawn concerns<\/a> about the impact from water use.<\/p>\n

The 78,000 square metre data centre is expected to open in 2028, fuelled by the explosion in global demand for artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Datagrid NZ remains majority owned by its Singapore-based parent company.<\/p>\n

Mercury’s investment came after it signed a 140 megawatt power purchase option agreement with Datagrid in March.<\/p>\n

Mercury chief executive Stew Hamilton, who was also appointed as a director for Datagrid NZ, said it was a disciplined investment by the company.<\/p>\n

“Investing in Datagrid NZ is aligned with our core strategy, bolsters our position alongside an important emerging source of long-term electricity demand, and is structured to preserve balance sheet strength and flexibility for our wider capital programme,” Hamilton said.<\/p>\n

Mercury, which has a large pipeline of new renewable energy projects, including a wind farm in Southland,<\/a> said the investment would support long-term renewable electricity demand growth.<\/p>\n

“We have a deep renewable development pipeline, and long-duration demand from large electricity users like Datagrid NZ provides us with the revenue certainty that underpins our investments in new renewable generation developments,” Hamilton said.<\/p>\n

Datagrid NZ founder and chair R\u00e9mi Galasso said speed of delivery was “crucial”.<\/p>\n

“Time to market is driving our strategy, and closing this round of investment funding allows us to move decisively,” Galasso said.<\/p>\n

“Partnering with a leading New Zealand green electricity generator like Mercury is a strategic step for us, not just an electricity supply arrangement.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the country’s biggest electricity companies has thrown its weight behind a firm planning to build a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-539425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}