Amazon Warns Europe's Power Grid Delays Could Stall Data Centre Growth for Seven Years

Amazon Hits a Seven-Year Wait for European Power

Amazon Web Services has issued a stark warning about Europe's crumbling power infrastructure: connecting a new data centre to the grid can take up to seven years, more than triple the time it takes to actually build the facility.

Pamela MacDougall, AWS's head of energy markets and regulation for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told Reuters this week that grid connection timelines have become "one of the biggest deciding factors" in where the company chooses to invest. "There's a misalignment," MacDougall said. "We want to expand and grow within two years." In many European countries, Amazon has abandoned planned projects entirely because missing grid connections or network congestion made them unfeasible.

Europe's Aging Grid Infrastructure

The problem is continental in scope. Around forty percent of Europe's distribution networks are more than forty years old, and investment has failed to keep pace with the demands of the net-zero transition. Wait times in the United States average one to three years, though they can stretch to seven in some cases. Italy and Spain face particularly acute slowdowns due to a backlog of "speculative" applications, where developers reserve grid capacity as a precaution but never proceed with projects. First-come, first-served rules prevent more viable projects from advancing.

Direct grid congestion costs in Europe reached four point three billion euros in twenty twenty-four, not including indirect costs from project delays. In major data centre hubs like Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, developers now face queues averaging seven to ten years. Dublin and Amsterdam have paused new projects entirely, citing lack of grid availability.

Industry Unites to Push for Reform

In response, tech giants have banded together. MacDougall serves as vice-chair of the Green Industrial Grids Association, or GIGA, launched in January twenty twenty-six to advocate for grid modernisation. Founding members include Meta, Google, Microsoft, Siemens Energy and Hitachi Energy. The group is pushing for a shift from first-come, first-served rules to a "first-ready, first-out" model that prioritises projects actually ready to proceed.

The European Commission proposed legal changes in December to cap grid permit approval deadlines at two years and exempt some projects from environmental assessments. The Commission estimates that modernising Europe's power grids will require approximately one point two trillion euros in investment by twenty forty. Data centre power demand in Europe is projected to nearly double by twenty thirty, reaching thirty-six gigawatts.

AWS maintains infrastructure in more than twenty European countries and is expanding investments in France, Germany and Spain, with previously announced commitments of fifteen point seven billion euros in Spain through twenty thirty-three and seven point eight billion euros in Germany through twenty forty. But MacDougall's warning is clear: without faster grid connections, those plans are at risk.