German data center developer Hetzner and MHB Montage, a German solar developer, have formed a new clean energy firm that will focus on developing solar and large-scale battery technologies.

The new company, HT Clean Energy GmbH, is currently developing a 6.5MW solar park across seven hectares in Nassau-Weikersheim, central Germany.

The company claims to be working on several other solar developments and aims to completely supply Hetzner’s data centers with energy generated by its solar projects in the long term.

“Our goal is to ensure that our data centers can meet growing energy capacity requirements, but that we can also do that by supplying them completely with self-generated, renewable energy. By doing this, we are taking responsibility to provide our clients with environmentally friendly IT infrastructure,” said Martin Hetzner.

Hetzner Online was established in 1997 as a privately owned web hosting company. It currently owns and operates two data center campuses in Germany, in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, and opened the Finnish campus in 2018.

The company also has data center parks in Virginia, Oregon, and Singapore. In August last year, it launched cloud services in Singapore.

MHB Montage is a German company that plans, installs, maintains, and repairs photovoltaic systems. Based in Merkendorf, Bavaria, it develops both ground-mounted and rooftop systems.

Other data center operators in Germany have secured solar power to supply their operations.

In March of last year, Maincubes signed a 10-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Stadtwerke Göttingen AG for 34MW of power.