AWS wants to build new data centers in Europe, but power grid capacity issues threaten to disrupt those plans. In some countries, waiting times are up to seven years.
A data center, like Rome, wasn’t built in a day: just ask AWS. The cloud provider recently unveiled its expansion plans for Europe. Even before the first stone of the new data centers is laid, AWS is already encountering a huge obstacle: the limited capacity of the power grid.
Waiting seven years
Even for a tech giant like AWS, getting a spot on the power grid is no easy task, according to Pamela McDougall, head of energy markets and regulation at AWS, to Reuters. In some countries, such as Spain and Italy, the waiting time can be up to seven years. Waiting times are much higher in Europe than in the United States, where you have to wait an average of one to three years to be connected to the grid.
Those long waiting times could redraw AWS’s expansion plans, McDougall says in the interview. A data center is built in about two years, and then it makes little sense to wait another five years for electricity. “There is a discrepancy. We want to expand and grow within two years. And we are seeing more and more across Europe that the certainty of the delivery date is being pushed further and further out,” says McDougall.
Data center rage
The European power grids are therefore literally and figuratively under high voltage. There is a need for more and larger data centers, and the availability of power threatens to no longer be able to keep up with demand. European energy organizations are asking for more investment from the EU in the electricity grid. The Commission responded in December with a proposal to simplify the application procedures.
AWS is investing in European data centers to expand its sovereign cloud. With this, the provider wants to respond to a growing demand from the European sector to keep data close by. To do this, it must first be able to build data centers. Microsoft and Google are also busy expanding their European infrastructure.
read also