Denmark faces data center reckoning as power grid overwhelmed by surging demand

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Nordics, long seen as a magnet for data center investment thanks to their stable climate and abundance of renewable energy, are now weighing limits on the growth of the power-hungry facilities as surging energy demand forces a rethink.

At the center of the debate is Denmark, the first of the Nordics to confront the question head-on, as the formation of a new government and a spike in grid access requests have meant a pause on new projects.

Data centers around the world are increasingly facing pushback due to concerns about their energy use. In the U.S, Maine recently came close to a data center construction ban and in Pennsylvania, the backlash could harm incumbents ahead of elections. Other states, including Virginia and Oklahoma are considering moratoriums.

Only two European countries have enforced full moratoriums on data centers, namely the Netherlands and Ireland. Both member states have since eased restrictions under certain conditions. But grid pressures are spreading across the continent, as the AI boom adds to an acceleration in electrification that was already being boosted by the energy transition and digitalization.

An extension of the moratorium can't be ruled out, Data Center Industry Association (DDI) CEO Henrik Hansen, told CNBC.

"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. We have to lean into this discussion and maybe also discipline our own industry a bit more."

He added that the spike in applications has resulted in a "fantasy" queue, where the gap between what's available and what's been requested is growing. The industry therefore, needs to take a closer look at projects that might not be as viable, he said, adding that the association is calling for more criteria to determine who should be given the highest priority and fastest connections.

"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. For some countries like the Netherlands, choosing between who should get access has been reduced to a debate about what's more important: a data center or a hospital.

Sebastian Schwartz Bøtcher, country sales director at energy management specialist Schneider Electric, described the debate on LinkedIn as the "energy policy hunger games" between data centers and businesses. He suggested that specific industries should not be singled out.

His sentiment was echoed by Tobias Johan Sørensen, senior analyst at think tank Concito, who said that no one should be put at the back of the queue, but there should be different queues based on a set of criteria.

The pause in Denmark is due to last three months or until Energinet can conduct an overview and new measures have been implemented to increase capacity. In order to start making decisions on how to prioritize the many access requests that are clogging up the queue, new political agreements and adjusted regulatory frameworks will need to be made, Energinet noted.

No political decisions have been made as Denmark is currently in the process of forming a new government following a general election. The energy and climate ministry declined to comment.

Prior to the elections, Energy Minister Lars Aagaard told local media that he would investigate the possibility of granting priority grid access to Danish customers, putting 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 told business news outlet Finans in January, according to comments translated by Google.

It was against this backdrop that questions around moratoriums and who should get 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, Joana Reicherts, EMEA datacenter government affairs director at Microsoft, said during a panel moderated by CNBC at the conference. The statement was echoed by other hyperscalers and operators as they look to engage more with the communities that are waking up to the reality of having huge server warehouses in their back yards.

Denmark had around 398 MW of installed data center capacity in 2026, with an additional 208 MW under construction. That's set to grow by 1.2 GW by 2030, according to the DDI Association. Hyperscales make up 60% of Denmark's current capacity.

"You can only wait so long," Diana Hodnett, global director of data center public affairs, partnerships and economic development at Google, told CNBC in an interview. When there is no certainty that the moratorium will be lifted in three months time, and the result is unclear, then there's an immediate pivot to look at other markets, she said, noting the need to move fast to service customers.

"I'm not sure governments and TSOs realize how quickly that can happen," Hodnett added, referring to transmission system operators that manage the grid.

Pernille Hoffmann, managing director of the Nordics at data center services firm Digital Realty, noted how times have changed. "In the past, it's always been there's abundance of power here, so it's never been an issue. ... 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. So that needs to be taken care of," Hoffmann told CNBC.

When asked about whether the temporary pause in grid applications might be extended, Pernille said, "I'm afraid so that it will be, but I hope not."

"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. If we are not able to supply those areas of requirement that is needed for AI deployments to be located here, they will move somewhere else," she said.

Some are hoping that the situation in Denmark will lead to new regulations that can provide examples for the rest of the Nordics and other European countries. Energinet Chief Operating Officer Soren Dupont Kristensen said during a panel discussion that the temporary pause can be seen as a "window of opportunity" to rethink regulation.

Ireland eased its moratorium late last year and that led to "one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks in Europe for managing large energy users," said Alistair Speirs, general manager at Microsoft's Azure Infrastructure. Microsoft is planning to invest $3 billion in data center capacity on Danish soil 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 told CNBC via email. "We hope to be able to continue to supply our Danish customers with the level of compute power for cloud and AI solutions that they demand, in order to support Danish economic competitiveness and the functioning of an increasingly digitised society."

He stressed that the facilities are essential infrastructure that keep the modern world running.

"The key question isn't whether demand for compute power slows – it's how quickly infrastructure and policy can catch up," he said.