India’s Maharashtra state is planning to set up data centre parks, potentially in partnership with private developers, a senior official told Infralogic today.

“We may set up three or four parks – two in Mumbai and one each in Pune and Nagpur – possibly in partnership with the private sector, or with the state industrial development corporation,” Secretary of Industries P Anbalagan said.

He was speaking with Infralogic on the sidelines of a summit in Mumbai – Building Sustainable Digital Foundations for Data Centres – hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The parks would be spread over at least 500 acres, he said, adding that the state government wants Mumbai to extend its lead to host about 70% of the country’s data centre capacity, up from about 40% now.

The state government is likely to reverse a current data centre policy, he said, restoring benefits linked to using renewable power whenever required.

The earlier policy allowed data centres that produced their own renewable energy to pump excess power into the grid during peak hours. They were allowed to use the power during non-peak hours.

As the state has eliminated the multiple time slots earlier designated as non-peak hours, data centres are now unable to benefit from the renewable power they are producing, said Manoj Paul, chairman of CII’s Western Region Taskforce on data centres.

There are no non-peak hours in the night like earlier, he said, so all the extra renewable energy will go unused, and the component of green power in the data centre’s power supply will come down.

The price benefit will also come down as the green power that data centre companies produce is less expensive than buying from the grid, he said. The green component will reduce from about 55% to around 40%, he said.

Paul said also that Maharashtra remains the top choice for investors and service providers.

“Its data centres capacity will grow to 800 MW by 2028 from the current 500 MW,” he said.