Construction applications for new hyperscale data centers are not allowed to be processed for the next nine months. This is what Minister Hugo de Jonge of Housing and Spatial Planning writes in a letter to the House of Representatives.
The decision has no consequences for the arrival of the controversial hyperscale data center of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to Zeewolde. In December last year, the Zeewolde city council decided that this data center, the largest in Europe, may be built.
De Jonge has decided on a temporary shutdown of nine months because the cabinet wants to tighten up the management of hyperscale data centers in the coming period. ‘The cabinet is not against hyperscale data centers in general and will therefore not exclude them,’ writes De Jonge. But: ‘Because of the potentially major impact locally due to the extensive use of space and large electricity consumption, more control is needed on where these data centers are located and the layout of locations.’
Mega data centers on the coast
The government wants hyperscale data centers, which generate relatively little employment but do use a lot of power and space, in principle to be located ‘on the edges of the country’. De Jonge also has researched whether hyperscales can now only be built on the coast.
The temporary stop applies to building applications for data centers of 10 hectares and more. Meta’s data center in Zeewolde covers a 166 hectare plot. There was a lot of commotion in the weeks before the decision-making process.
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