The loan proceeds will fund the development and capital expenditure of the facility

 

SINGTEL&rsquo S regional data centre arm, Nxera DCT, has secured a S$643 million, five-year green loan to finance the development of a new 58 megawatt data centre (DC) in Singapore.

 

The participating banks are DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered, HSBC and UOB.

 

On Friday (Feb 7), the telecommunications giant said the loan proceeds will go towards funding the development and capital expenditure of DC Tuas, which is the &ldquo most hyper-connected&rdquo green data centre it will have the highest power density in the Republic.

 

DC Tuas, which will begin operations in 2026, has been awarded the Green Mark Platinum certificate by Singapore&rsquo s Building and Construction Authority and the Infocomm Media Development Authority.

 

Arthur Lang, Singtel group chief financial officer, said: &ldquo DC Tuas will feature a green design and build, as well as next-generation liquid cooling systems, making it ideal for meeting the demand from enterprises for high-intensity compute and artificial-intelligence workloads.

 

&ldquo This loan will enable us to support Singapore&rsquo s digital economy while reducing our carbon footprint, in keeping with our net-zero goals.&rdquo

 

Nxera&rsquo s green goals include achieving Scope 1 and 2 net-zero emissions by 2028, as well as embedding sustainability across every aspect of its business.

 

Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions which are released through activity at a facility level. Scope 2 emissions are those released at the power station for the generation of electricity that the company consumes.

 

Singtel said: &ldquo DC Tuas will support the growing enterprise demand for high-quality, sustainable digital infrastructure while optimising land, power and water use.&rdquo

 

The data centre will incorporate a &ldquo highly efficient&rdquo chilled water system and water-recycling features to maximise water efficiency. It will also operate at a power-usage effectiveness of below 1.25 at full load.

 

Power-usage effectiveness is the ratio of the total energy used by the data centre to that of IT equipment energy used. A data centre with a lower one is more efficient.

 

Singtel noted that the green loan is in line with the group&rsquo s sustainable financing programme. The group first secured a S$535 million green loan in December 2023 to refinance the borrowings and to support the operations of DC West and DC Kim Chuan.