Data centres are key to our economy

Our work, our payment traffic, our hospitals, schools, and our leisure economy need good data infrastructure and storage. In recent years, we have all spent more time on the world wide web. Internet is now just as self-evident as clean water from the tap. For working from home, ordering your shopping, video calls with your friends, a night in watching movies, online photo storage and sharing, sending an app. We spend more and more time online. It saves driving many kilometres and saves time.

We need telephones, computers and internet connections, and data centres. All this information is stored and processed in those data centres. That happens abroad, but increasingly often in the Netherlands. This is not possible just anywhere in the Netherlands but it is in Eemshaven. It has space, plenty of electricity, a good infrastructure, and there are various hubs of large and fast internet connections. There are many opportunities for the arrival of data centres in Eemshaven.

Strengthening the economy

By building data centres in this region, our economy is strengthened further. Constructing data centres involves a great deal of specialist work, and our region has that expertise. The presence of data centres is good for the local community too, as it brings jobs and a need for skilled employees. It means young people can stay in the region and do not have to move west to find work. Despite the fact that there is plenty of room to build data centres in the northern Netherlands, we need to make sure that data centres blend into the environment. Residents cannot experience nuisance from the construction of a data centre. In an industrial environment like Eemshaven data centres barely stand out and residents live a fair distance away.

Security of energy supply

Data centres consume a large amount of power. That too makes Eemshaven a good place to build data centres. Plenty of green power generation, but also power supplied from abroad and from wind farms at sea. In total, data centres from the surrounding area have the use of more than 8000 MW, spread over a broad energy mix. In short, Eemshaven offers a guaranteed supply of green energy, ample electrical capacity, a number of large power stations, and several high-voltage and medium-voltage substations. Eemshaven also has all the facilities required by data centres. Besides an energy supply that is unrivalled in Europe, the region has excellent connections with internet hubs in Amsterdam, Hamburg, and the Danish region. Eemshaven is simply one of the best locations for data centres in Europe.