News item | 16-02-2022 | 14:38
The cabinet is introducing stricter rules for the construction of hyperscale data centers. The admission criteria for licensing are also becoming stricter. This is what Minister De Jonge of Housing and Spatial Planning writes in a letter to the House of Representatives. In the run-up to the drafting of stricter rules, the cabinet will today take a preparatory decision. The duration of this decision is nine months. In this way, the cabinet wants to prevent new hyperscale data centers from settling in undesirable places in the Netherlands before the criteria have been laid down in law.
Minister De Jonge: ‘Our space is limited, so we have to make the right choices. Hyperscale data centers take up a lot of space and consume a disproportionate amount of available renewable energy. That is why the cabinet wants to prevent hyperscale data centers from being built throughout the Netherlands. This calls for more national control by tightening the rules. Until the rules are in place, it has been decided to hold on to new building applications and not grant them for a period of 9 months.’
These are data centers of 10 ha or more and an electricity connection of 70 Mw or more. In addition, it concerns hyperscales that are used for the company’s own services. For this tightening up, the minister will investigate how hyperscale data centers can only be allowed near landing points for wind energy on the coast, if there is room for this. In doing so, the government cooperates with other governments and takes into account the various interests. The legal structure will be worked out in collaboration with the local authorities. This will be anchored in a General Administrative Order and in rules at local level.
The municipalities of Het Hogeland and Hollands Kroon are excluded from the effect of the preparatory decision because of the previously determined locations of Eemshaven and Middenmeer. In addition, the decision does not relate to the arrival of a hyperscale data center in Zeewolde.