Equinix has received a permit to build a major data centre in Amsterdam Zuidoost, but the company will initially construct only one quarter of the planned facility because of severe constraints on the local electricity grid.
The first phase of the project will consist of a single 60-metre-high tower in the Amstel III business district, an area where thousands of new homes are also planned over the coming years.
The permit was published on Monday. Once fully completed, the data centre is expected to consist of four towers. The entire facility would require an electricity connection with a capacity of 80 megawatts and consume approximately 779 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
For comparison, all households in Amsterdam consumed a combined 869 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2024.
Grid capacity limits construction
The project is moving forward despite the city’s ongoing electricity grid capacity problems. Amsterdam imposed a moratorium on new data centre construction last year because of pressure on the electricity network. However, Equinix’s project had already received approval before the moratorium came into force.
The facility will be Equinix’s tenth data centre in Amsterdam and the surrounding area.
The company is currently arranging its own connection to TenneT’s high-voltage grid, but the network does not have sufficient capacity at present. Additional capacity is expected to become available after several major TenneT substations planned around the city are completed, currently scheduled for 2036.
Until then, Equinix plans to rely on the Liander electricity network, for which it applied for capacity several years ago.
Equinix director Michiel Eielts described the decision to build only one of the four planned towers initially as a compromise. He said the company would use only half of the capacity that Liander can provide and that additional capacity would become available once the facility is connected to the TenneT network.
Equinix promises benefits for new neighbourhood
Eielts said the company wants the data centre to become part of the new neighbourhood planned for the former Amstel III business district.
Equinix plans to supply the waste heat generated by the data centre to the district heating network free of charge, allowing nearby homes and offices to use it for heating. The company also intends to make space around the facility and areas on the ground floor available to the municipality for facilities serving local residents.
Eielts said data centres are increasingly essential for healthcare providers, businesses and other organisations in Amsterdam that require server capacity. Equinix also said the storage capacity at the new facility would be used by Amsterdam-based companies.
The issue of who uses the city’s data centres has become politically sensitive. Earlier this year, a data centre being built in Westpoort attracted criticism after it was reportedly leased in full to Microsoft before construction had even begun.
Data centres add pressure to public infrastructure
The Equinix project comes as Amsterdam struggles to expand its electricity infrastructure quickly enough to accommodate both new housing and growing demand from data centres.
The municipality warned last year that limited grid capacity was putting housing developments, dozens of schools, asylum centres and the planned OBA Next library at risk.
Earlier this year, the city also concluded that the electricity infrastructure around Amstel III would not have enough capacity to support the 5,500 to 8,000 homes planned for the area.
The data centre will also require significant amounts of water for cooling. Equinix has applied to use around 274 million litres of cooling water per year during the initial phase. Once the facility reaches full capacity, annual consumption could rise to approximately 1.095 billion litres.
Water is already considered a constrained resource in the region. Amsterdam Municipality and Waternet are investing in expanding water-treatment capacity to keep pace with the city’s growth.
Municipality faces potential compensation claims
The city has defended its decision to allow the project to proceed, pointing to agreements that were made years ago.
A spokesperson for Amsterdam alderman Alexander Scholtes told Het Parool that the agreements concerning the data centre had been concluded many years ago. If the municipality were to withdraw from the project at this stage, it could face substantial compensation claims.
The project therefore highlights a growing dilemma for Amsterdam: data centres are increasingly important to the city’s digital economy, but their demand for electricity and water is competing with the infrastructure needed to support new housing and other public services.
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