Denmark Temporarily Halts New Data Center Connections Due to Overloaded Grid Requests

Denmark has paused new data center projects amid the formation of a new government and a spike in grid access requests, CNBC reported. The temporary halt, introduced by state-owned grid operator Energinet in March, addresses an explosion in capacity requests that far exceed available power.

Around 60 GW of projects await grid connections in Denmark, where peak electricity demand stands at about 7 GW, and data centers represent nearly a quarter of that backlog at 14 GW, according to an Energinet spokesperson.

The pause is set to last three months or until Energinet completes an overview and implements measures to boost capacity. No political decisions on grid access have occurred yet, as Denmark forms a new government after a general election. In January, Energy Minister Lars Aagaard stated he would investigate priority grid access for Danish customers, potentially placing data centers at the back of the queue.

'I suspect that data centers and battery parks, among other things, are taking up much of the available capacity in the electricity grid,' Aagaard said. Henrik Hansen, CEO of the Data Center Industry Association (DDI), said an extension of the moratorium cannot be ruled out. 'We have to be realistic and look at what is actually available.

It's not possible to really just go berserk with all kinds of connection agreements, because the power is not available,' Hansen stated. He described the spike in applications as creating a 'fantasy' queue, with a growing gap between available and requested capacity.

The association advocates for stronger criteria to prioritize connections based on project maturity, actual investment decisions, customers, and societal value.

'We argue very much for the need to clean up that queue and look into stronger criteria in terms of maturity, actual investment decisions, customers and also the societal value,' Hansen said. Denmark marks the first Nordic country to confront limits on data center growth, drawn by the region's stable climate and abundant renewable energy.

The country had 398 MW of installed data center capacity in 2026, with an additional 208 MW under construction, according to the DDI Association.

2 GW by 2030, with hyperscalers comprising 60% of current capacity. Questions on moratoriums and priority energy access dominated discussions at the Data Centers Denmark conference in Copenhagen last week. 'Gone are the days when you could build data centers silently,' said Joana Reicherts, EMEA datacenter government affairs director at Microsoft.

Diana Hodnett, global director of data center public affairs, partnerships and economic development at Google, said companies can only wait so long. When uncertainty persists about lifting the moratorium in three months, firms pivot to other markets. 'I'm not sure governments and TSOs realize how quickly that can happen,' Hodnett stated.

Pernille Hoffmann, managing director of the Nordics at Digital Realty, noted a shift from past abundance of power. 'In the past, it's always been there's abundance of power here, so it's never been an issue,' Hoffmann said. 'I think we see this huge demand also coming from data centers that is not really in alignment with the distribution network at all, or the grid.

She added, 'If you cannot get your AI workloads located in Denmark, you'll just move them somewhere else, and that is what we will see. And that goes both for Denmark, but also for the Nordics as a region. Energinet Chief Operating Officer Soren Dupont Kristensen described the temporary pause as a 'window of opportunity' to rethink regulation.

In similar moves, the Netherlands and Ireland enforced full moratoriums on data centers but later eased them under certain conditions. Ireland's eased moratorium late last year resulted in one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks in Europe for managing large energy users, according to Alistair Speirs, general manager at Microsoft's Azure Infrastructure.

Microsoft plans to invest $3 billion in data center capacity in Denmark between 2023 and 2027.

'Our investments are in response to an ask by our Danish customers who want to store and process their data close to home and under EU law,' Speirs said. Broader debates on grid access echo in places like the Netherlands, where priorities pit data centers against hospitals.

Sebastian Schwartz Bøtcher, country sales director at Schneider Electric, described the debate as the 'energy policy hunger games' between data centers and businesses on LinkedIn.

Tobias Johan Sørensen, senior analyst at Concito, said no one should be put at the back of the queue but there should be different queues based on criteria. , Maine recently approached a data center construction ban, while Pennsylvania faces backlash against such facilities that could affect incumbents ahead of elections. Virginia and Oklahoma are considering moratoriums on data centers.