Key Points:
- Amazon says slow power grid connections are stalling its European expansion.
- Getting power can take seven years, while building a facility takes only two.
- “Speculative” projects are clogging the waiting lists in Spain and Italy.
- Amazon joined Google and Meta to lobby for urgent grid modernization.
Amazon wants to build more data centers across Europe to support its massive cloud computing business, but the company is running into a major roadblock: the electricity grid can’t keep up. The tech giant says that getting plugged into the power network takes far too long, and these delays are now threatening its ability to invest in new European sites.
Pamela MacDougall, a top energy executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlighted the massive gap in timing. She explained that constructing a data center usually takes about two years.
However, getting a connection to the transmission network in Europe can take up to seven years. This means a high-tech facility could sit waiting for power for half a decade. In comparison, the wait time in the United States is typically between one and three years.
“We want to expand and grow within two years,” MacDougall stated. She noted that in many European countries, Amazon wanted to build infrastructure but had to back off because the grid connections were missing or the network was too congested to handle the load.
The European Union is aware of the problem. Officials recently proposed new laws to cap the time for approving grid permits at two years. However, the current system remains clogged.
In countries like Italy and Spain, the waiting line is full of “speculative” projects. These are applications from companies that reserve a spot on the grid just in case, even if they never actually build anything. Because the rules are “first-come, first-served,” real projects from companies like Amazon get stuck behind these “ghost” projects.
To push for faster changes, Amazon has joined a new industry group called GIGA. Alongside other energy-hungry tech giants like Meta and Google, Amazon is lobbying European policymakers to modernize the aging grid.
While Amazon already operates in over 20 European countries and plans to spend more in France, Germany, and Spain, the company warns that without a faster, more reliable power grid, Europe risks losing out on major industrial investments.
