Frankfurt to restrict and regulate data centers

Frankfurt has proposed a development plan to regulate data centers in the area. The plan, it says, will prevent the “uncontrolled growth” of data centers. The city is the hub of the data center industry in Germany, and one of the four largest hubs in Europe, taking up 64 hectares (640,000 sqm) of space.

These proposed plans mirror those of Amsterdam’s, which, back in 2019, placed a one-year moratorium on building new data centers. With currently more than 60 colocation sites, the city authorities have proposed that facilities should be built taller to minimize space.

Speaking about how the data center landscape is changing, the city magistrate said that, increasingly, data centers will be housed in new specialized buildings. The new facilities will also require much more power, sometimes over 100MW, and so to save energy, the magistrate suggests waste heat reuse.

DCD has a more detailed article