Alphabet may not build a data center in East Brandenburg

Plans by Google’s Alphabet group to build a data center in eastern Brandenburg have fallen through. Due to the water shortage in the region in question, the request was rejected.

Data center in Neuenhagen

The data center, which was intended to operate the group’s cloud, was planned for the town of Neuenhagen. A suitable site had already been found: There was a brownfield site in the local industrial park that seemed well suited due to its connection to a power line. Negotiations were already underway.

Now, however, the plans have been thwarted: The local water supply company is opposing Alphabet because the planned data center would consume too much water. The high water consumption in the region is problematic because of the regional water shortage. Brandenburg is one of the driest regions in Germany, with particularly little rain falling there in recent years.

Water scarcity before and after Tesla

Water consumption in the region has also increased significantly in the recent past, which the waterworks say is due to both private settlements and an expansion of industry. Among the newly settled industrial companies is Tesla – the company is building a factory in nearby Grünheide, which requires an enormous amount of water.

But even before Tesla, water was a scarce commodity. So far, about 11 million cubic meters of water are delivered annually. Tesla will need another 1.4 million cubic meters. But already today, the waterworks are exceeding the delivery volume with their deliveries. In this problematic situation, there is no room for another company with enormous water consumption. So Alphabet has to look for another location.

Data center in Berlin or Brandenburg

In this context, the group would still like to move to the Berlin-Brandenburg region. This is explained by the fact that a particularly large number of the company’s customers are located there. A locally based data center would ensure that latencies, availability and reliability could be significantly reduced.