Flevoland Approves Major Data Centre Amidst Regional Power Grid Crisis
Almere, Friday 13 February 2026
The Province of Flevoland has formally authorised EvoSwitch to construct a €61 million data centre in Almere, a facility projected to consume electricity comparable to 80,000 households. This approval arrives precisely as grid operator TenneT warns of critical capacity shortages across Flevoland, Gelderland, and Utrecht, threatening a connection freeze for new homes and businesses by July 2026. The decision to greenlight a high-consumption industrial facility while the region’s high-voltage network reaches its limit highlights a stark conflict between economic expansion and infrastructure capabilities. As stakeholders scramble for solutions to prevent a complete gridlock, this development intensifies the debate regarding the allocation of scarce energy resources between the digital economy and essential housing projects.
Infrastructure at the Limit
The newly approved facility at the Sallandsekant business park represents a significant expansion of digital infrastructure, with a projected construction cost of over €61 million [1]. Despite the scale of the investment, the project’s resource requirements are substantial; the centre’s energy consumption is expected to rival that of more than 80,000 households [1]. Furthermore, the cooling systems will require the extraction of hundreds of millions of litres of water annually from the Hoge Vaart [1]. While EvoSwitch maintains that the facility will not cause thermal pollution and aims to be the most sustainable in the Netherlands, the approval process saw a procedural dismissal of the sole objection due to late submission, though legal avenues for appeal regarding environmental effects remain open [1].
The Housing and Grid Dilemma
This development stands in sharp contrast to the urgent warnings issued by the national grid operator, TenneT, regarding the stability of the high-voltage network in the Flevoland, Gelderland, and Utrecht (FGU) region [2]. TenneT has indicated that the high-voltage grid has reached its physical limits, creating a risk of large-scale failures [5]. Consequently, the operator has announced a potential connection freeze for small consumers—including households and small businesses—effective from 1 July 2026 if no immediate interventions are made [2]. This ultimatum has shocked provincial administrators, as it directly jeopardises national ambitions for housing and economic growth [2]. Specifically, the realisation of approximately 240,000 new homes planned for these three provinces over the next decade is now at significant risk due to the inability to guarantee grid connections [3].
Systemic Bottlenecks and Political Fallout
The crisis highlights a structural disconnect in the Dutch energy landscape. While the FGU region generates large amounts of renewable electricity, the infrastructure to transport and manage this power is insufficient, leading to congestion [2]. The Province of Flevoland has argued that technical solutions, such as controllable generation (regelbare opwek), are available but require federal support to be implemented effectively [2]. Meanwhile, political pressure is mounting; Huib van Essen, the deputy for Utrecht, has sought urgent dialogue with the new Minister of Climate and Green Growth, Stientje van Veldhoven, to address the impasse [3]. With the high-voltage network critically overloaded, stakeholders are debating the prioritisation of energy access, weighing the expansion of the digital economy against the fundamental need for residential power [4][5].