Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has pulled the plug on what would have been Europe’s largest data centre after strong resistance from locals.
Meta had acquired about half of the 166 hectares of land, the size of 132 international football fields, near the town of Zeewolde, where it planned to build the data centre. The town of 22,000 inhabitants is surrounded by agricultural land reclaimed from the sea. The council was on board. It had planned to buy the land, a plot called Trekkersveld 4, from the central government and then sell it on to Meta.
The backlash started early last year when residents found out that their local council had been secretly negotiating the arrival of the data centre with Meta. News of the plans became public on 24 February and residents were given six weeks to object, according to residents’ association Datatruc Zeewolde. There was not enough time to read through thousands of pages and digest the implications.
Datatruc Zeewolde argued that the data centre would spoil the horizon, cause light pollution and noise and produce dirty cooling water that would end up in the nearby canal or lake. An impact study by Arcadis agreed that the data centre would be a blight on the landscape and cause noise pollution. However, it argued that water quality would improve as agricultural wastewater would be replaced by cleaner wastewater from the data centre.
The data centre’s energy consumption has been another issue. Zeewolde is part of the province of Flevoland, which is the country’s sustainable energy champion. Because it is relatively sparsely populated, there is plenty of room for windmills and solar panels. Meta’s data centre would need to consume as much electricity as 460,000 households. Datatruc Zeewolde argued that this would hinder the Netherlands in its energy targets. Ironically, the data centre would not even serve the local market. Arcadis’ impact study suggested that the energy should come from a yet-to-be developed sustainable energy source. Solar panels on the roofs of the data centre and an onsite green energy generator would not be enough to power it. Aracadis argued that houses in the local community could be heated by the water used to cool the servers.
Citizens' collective Land van Ons (Our Land) also got involved. The cooperative, which buys up land with money from the public to preserve biodiversity, said it was interested in buying the 80 hectares Meta still needed. It cited a case in which the High Court had ruled that local authorities cannot enter one-on-one negotiations with a seller when it concerns scarce real estate, including land. Others must be given the opportunity to bid too, the High Court had ruled.
In December, the Dutch senate all but killed off Meta’s plans by blocking the sale of land. The Senate wanted to see a national vision for data centres as part of long-term planning first. Meta’s plans to kill off the data centre in Zeewolde took the local council by surprise, according to a short statement on its website.
"When considering a location for a data centre, we prioritise making sure that it is a good fit with the community," a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "Ultimately, we’ve decided that building a data centre in Zeewolde is not the right investment. We are ending our development efforts, and will work closely with the municipality and province to efficiently conclude this project.”
Tom Zonneveld, chairman of another residents’ association, Leefbaar Zeewolde (Liveable Zeewolde) told local media that he was surprised about Meta’s decision. He had expected the US company to bide its time.
“It was being said that the decision about the arrival of the data centre was made and that there was nothing to be done about it,” said Zonneveld. “That appears to be a bit less black-and-white.”