Ireland: grid policy is reshaping who can build
Ireland has tightened the rules on who gets to connect.
The Large Energy User Action Plan has been in effect since 31 March 2026.
Any operator seeking a new grid connection must now match at least 80% of its power demand with new renewable projects built inside Ireland.
The context explains the strictness: data centres made up 22% of Ireland's electricity use in 2025.
A High Court case is challenging whether rules permitting gas-powered backup generation actually comply with EU law.
The early effect is not more capacity. It is redirected capital, with developers steered toward regional sites rather than the Greater Dublin Area.
Netherlands: still restricted, but finding workarounds
The Dutch cap on hyperscale is still in place, so developers are building around it.
A January 2024 decree still limits new hyperscale data centres to two remote northern municipalities.
Rather than fight it, some developers are working with it.
The Municipality of Uithoorn signed an agreement with Switch Datacenters and dozens of local greenhouse growers to build a heat network fed by residual heat from a new data centre.
It replaces natural gas in the greenhouses of De Kwakel and Kudelstaart.
The project recently secured an SDE++ grant, putting real government funding behind it.
Spain: new AI campuses betting on their own power
In central Spain, developers are choosing self-generation over the connection queue.
DC Malpica is a €3 billion AI campus backed by EdgeMode, BlackBerry AIF and the town of Mora.
It is moving through regional permitting in Castilla-La Mancha, seeking Priority Project status to speed approvals.
Its strategy is shared by several regional projects: build the power source first rather than wait years for a grid connection.
One caveat. Own power here means self-generation through natural gas fuel cells. It is a bet on grid independence, not on renewables.
Germany: a national strategy, and real compliance deadlines
Germany is doubling down on capacity while setting hard efficiency targets.
The National Data Centre Strategy launched in March 2026, aiming to double national capacity by 2030.
The Energy Efficiency Act sets firm Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) deadlines: 1.5 by July 2027, and 1.3 by 2030.
Maincubes' 40MW facility in Dietzenbach is one of the first designed around the heat reuse rules.
The Argaman Group's 200MW project in Birstein runs on its own dedicated wind farm rather than the public grid.
France: the market everyone else wishes it was
While its neighbours ration grid connections, France is actively courting data centres with the one thing it has in surplus: nuclear power.
Paris delivered 72.5MW in the first half of 2026, more than a third of all new FLAP-D capacity, and already ahead of its full-year forecast.
EDF has opened six of its own former industrial sites to developers, together covering over 2GW with fast-tracked grid connections.
The most recent is a 500MW site at Creys-Mépieu, launched in early July.
EDF is also in exclusive negotiations with OpCore on a €4 billion facility at a former coal plant southeast of Paris, on a parcel with an authorised connection of up to 700MW.
Where Ireland asks operators to bring their own renewables, France offers the land, the power and the connection.
The bigger picture: where capacity actually landed in H1 2026
JLL's mid-year EMEA report shows how uneven the 194MW of new capacity was.
Paris: 72.5MW
London: 49MW
Frankfurt: 45MW
Amsterdam: 16.3MW
Dublin: 11.4MW
It is a stark illustration of how much Ireland's grid restrictions are slowing delivery compared with the rest of the FLAP-D group.
Public pushback is part of the story now
Local opposition is no longer a rare obstacle. It is shaping the pipeline.
Stack Infrastructure pulled its proposed €3 billion project out of Babenhausen, Germany, in mid-July, after the city council demanded more transparency, renewable energy commitments and financial guarantees.
It is not isolated. A Google facility planned for Berlin-Brandenburg and a 174MW Vantage Data Centers project outside Frankfurt were also withdrawn in recent months.
Both echo Meta's planned facility in Zeewolde, Netherlands, which was withdrawn in 2022.
For anyone working in site selection, construction or operations, dealing with local pushback is no longer an exception. It is part of the job description.
