EMEA saw 2.8 GW of new data centre plans in a week, 3% with grid power by 2029. Israel’s cap is next

In ten days, developers proposed almost 2.8 GW of new data centre capacity across the UK and Spain, and less than a thirtieth of it has a grid date before 2030. The same fortnight showed what happens when power is late: Microsoft walked away from the UK’s flagship AI site, and Israel moved to cap every new campus at 200 MW.

Why now: this is the Friday read of our trackers for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The signal this week is the gap between announced megawatts and connected megawatts. Spain’s revised data centre decree went to the Council of State on 26 October, Israel’s consultation on its cap is open, and Germany’s grid connection package and the EU’s AI gigafactory bids both fall due in the next two weeks. Each will decide which of these plans gets power.

New facilities: gigawatt plans, megawatt connections

The UK produced two gigawatt proposals in three days. On 22 October Era4, the developer known as Carbon3.ai until March, detailed “The Mill”, an AI campus on a former steelworks site on Corporation Road in Newport, South Wales, designed to reach 1 GW and capacity for up to 400,000 Nvidia GPUs, with a first phase due in 2027. The site sits inside the South Wales AI Growth Zone, which promises priority grid access, but Era4 has not published a connection date or capacity for the first phase. Two days earlier, Evolution Power’s subsidiary EPL Norfolk opened consultation on Longmarsh Green Energy, up to 1 GW of data centres with 1.3 GW of solar and batteries on about 4,695 acres near King’s Lynn. It would connect at the Walpole substation in 2031, reNEWS reported, with a development consent application planned for April 2027 and operation by 2032.

Spain added two more. An Oman-linked fund, O-Green, is financing a 570 MW campus at San Mateo de Gállego near Zaragoza, €7.446 billion over four phases to 2035, with a first phase of 90 MW and €1.17 billion for the data centre by 2029, Heraldo de Aragón reported on 20 October. Grid permits cover that first 90 MW: 80 MW at the Peñaflor substation and 10 MW at Villanueva de Gállego. The rest has no access yet. In Belchite, the engineering firm Krolmap plans a €1.5 billion, 225 MW campus that would run on its own renewables, batteries and cogeneration with no transmission connection, Heraldo reported on 18 October. No tenant or financial partner has been named.

Added up, the four proposals come to 2,795 MW. Only O-Green’s 90 MW, about 3%, has grid access on the record for 2029 or earlier (our calculation). The two UK gigawatt plans alone equal 2.5 times the 804 MW of live UK capacity that DC Market Insights tracks, and 28% of the 7,065 MW of UK plans already in our tracker.

Sources: Era4 project page; Longmarsh Green Energy consultation and reNEWS; Heraldo de Aragón (20 and 18 Oct 2026); El Periódico de Aragón (Vantage plot, 24 Jul 2026). Investment per MW = stated investment ÷ MW proposed (our calculation). Krolmap’s figure appears to exclude the on-site power plant’s full cost and is not directly comparable. O-Green’s first phase works out at €13.0m per MW (€1.17bn ÷ 90 MW), close to the US$12.76 per watt European build cost in Turner & Townsend’s 2026-27 index, which we covered on 29 October.

The Zaragoza site carries its own warning. O-Green’s partners took over a plan that Vantage Data Centers had announced in September 2025 at nearby Villanueva de Gállego and gave up in July 2026 over connection problems at the saturated Villanueva and Peñaflor nodes, El Periódico de Aragón reported. The new plan draws on the same two substations.

Status moves: what actually switched on

Against 2.8 GW of plans, the capacity that went live this fortnight was measured in tens of megawatts. On 27 October CoreWeave said most of its 22.5 MW of planned IT capacity at atNorth’s DEN01 in Ballerup, Greater Copenhagen, was online, its first site in Denmark and part of a European footprint of nine data centres, the company said.

Our own tracker moved the same way. Between 21 and 30 October the UK records in DC Market Insights data rose from 184 to 187 facilities; live capacity went from 760 MW to 804 MW (+44 MW), under-construction capacity fell from 286 MW to 260 MW as sites completed, and planned capacity rose from 6,935 MW to 7,065 MW (+130 MW). UK plans are now 8.8 times live capacity. Germany’s figures were unchanged at 844 MW live, 2,014 MW under construction and 2,415 MW planned. Across all 65 countries we track, 19,845 MW is live, 30,988 MW is under construction and 68,818 MW is planned, in 2,968 facilities.

Source: DC Market Insights data (facilities tracker, read 30 Oct 2026, 04:53-04:55 UTC; UK figures for 21 Oct from our 21 October analysis). MW are tracker totals for facilities with a stated or estimated MW (104 of 187 UK sites; 88 of 177 German sites), so they understate the full market. The two new UK gigawatt proposals were not yet in the tracker at the time of reading.

Deals: buyers pay for power, and one anchor tenant left

The biggest closed deal of the week in the region was in London’s Docklands. On 29 October KDDI and Telehouse completed the purchase of the Inventory Estate at East India Dock, next to the Telehouse campus, from LaSalle Investment Management and Trilogy Real Estate for more than £220 million (US$294 million), Telehouse said. The estate comes with 65 MVA of secured power. That prices the site at about £3.4 million per MVA of secured supply (our calculation). The sellers bought the estate from Criterion Capital for £170 million in 2015, so the value rose about 29% (our calculation).

Ten days earlier the region lost a headline tenant. On 19 October Microsoft confirmed it had ended its plan to anchor Nscale’s data centre at Loughton, Essex, after UK Power Networks said the site’s connection would not be ready for its 2026 target because of upstream transmission works, City AM reported. Grid officials told Nscale the site would not have power until the 2030s, according to UK media cited by Bloomberg. Microsoft said the decision “relates to a single site”; Nscale said it was “exploring alternative power sources”. Nscale had pledged £2 billion for the facility. DC Market Insights tracks one Nscale UK site in planning at 50 MW.

Germany got the week’s largest pledge. On 20 October Amazon said it plans to invest €16 billion in Germany in 2027, including €4.8 billion to expand the AWS Europe (Frankfurt) Region, Amazon said at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin. AWS is 30% of the total (our calculation). Our German tracker shows 300 MW in the AWS pipeline there.

Rules: Israel caps, Spain relaxes

Israel is the sharpest case of demand outrunning a grid. Developers have asked Noga, the system operator, for 27,000 MW of data centre connections, against 18,800 MW of installed generation, an average load of about 9,000 MW and a peak of 17,300 MW in August 2025, CTech reported on 14 October. Requests include 50 facilities above 200 MW. The Electricity Authority’s answer is a ceiling of 200 MW for any new data centre, with no geographic limits; on that basis the 1,100 MW Mega DC project in Hadera and the 875 MW SDS project in Nesher could not go ahead as planned.

The Authority published the main points on 18 October, CTech reported the next day: about 2,000 MW of connections already approved, 1,000 MW more allocated to large data centres, and a guarantee of NIS 2 million per MW requested. The full decision then goes to a three-week public consultation. Approved and allocated capacity of about 3,000 MW covers 11% of the 27,000 MW requested (our calculation). For a 200 MW campus, which CTech puts at more than NIS 4 billion to build, the guarantee would be NIS 400 million, about 10% of build cost (our calculation).

Spain is moving the other way. On 26 October the government sent a revised royal decree on data centre energy, environmental, resilience and digital sovereignty requirements to the Council of State after more than 600 submissions, El Periódico de la Energía reported. The rules now apply from 10 MW of access capacity, up from 1 MW, with sites of the same owner counted together. The core rule stays: 80% of consumption from additional renewables, matched hour by hour. But plants up to 36 months old (from 18) now count, minimum PPA terms fall from ten to six years, storage counts towards hourly matching, and the PUE ceiling rises from 1.15 to 1.25 for sites that sign access contracts before 1 January 2029, until the end of 2031. WUE stays at 0.1. Sites that opt out of the 80% rule must join the interruptibility scheme. We covered the first draft and Aragón’s 12 GW of grid access on 13 October.

Sources: CTech (14 and 19 Oct 2026); El Periódico de la Energía (26 Oct 2026); DC Market Insights power and policy tracker (UK and Germany rows). Spain’s pre-election approval aim was reported by Reuters on 26-27 Oct; we could not open the wire copy and list it as a reported aim, not a fixed date.

The wider pattern: power is the scarce asset

This fortnight’s four data levels point the same way. New plans are large and mostly unpowered; the capacity that switched on was small and sat in an existing building; the best-priced deal was for land with secured power; and the anchor tenant that left did so because the grid was late. Regulators are now rationing connections outright (Israel), charging for them (Britain’s proposed security fee, which we analysed on 19 October) or loosening other rules so that connected sites can fill (Spain).

Developers are responding by bringing their own power. Krolmap plans no grid link at all; Longmarsh pairs 1 GW of load with 1.3 GW of solar and batteries; Nscale is “exploring alternative power sources” at Loughton. Solar of 1.3 GW cannot run a 1 GW load around the clock, so such schemes still depend on the grid or on gas and batteries for most hours. The same tension showed in the Netherlands, where data centres hold about 15 GW of queued grid requests, as we reported on 26 October.

For market sizing, see our UK AI Data Center Market report for British AI capacity and spend, the Spain Data Center Market report for the Iberian build-out, and the Data Center Generator Market report for on-site power. For the data behind this read, see the Deal Tracker, our United Kingdom power and policy page and our Germany power and policy page.

What to watch next

• Early November 2026: Spain’s Council of State opinion and Council of Ministers approval of the revised data centre decree, which the government aims to pass before the 29 November election.
• Early to mid November 2026: Israel’s three-week consultation on the full 200 MW decision; the exact closing date depends on when the full text was published.
• 9-13 November 2026: expected second and third Bundestag readings of Germany’s grid connection package.
• 12 November 2026: bid deadline for the EU AI gigafactory call, for sites of up to 150 MW (the call page has also shown 3 December).
• 26 November 2026: Longmarsh Green Energy community consultation closes; a development consent application is planned for April 2027.
• 29 November 2026: Spain’s general election.

Frequently asked questions

How much new data centre capacity was announced in Europe in late October 2026?

About 2,795 MW in four UK and Spanish proposals between 18 and 23 October: Era4 Newport (1 GW), Longmarsh Norfolk (1 GW), O-Green Zaragoza (570 MW) and Krolmap Belchite (225 MW). Only 90 MW, about 3%, has grid access stated for 2029 or earlier (our calculation).

Why did Microsoft pull out of Nscale’s Loughton data centre?

Because the grid was late. UK Power Networks said the Loughton site would not be connected by its 2026 target due to upstream transmission works, and UK media reported power only in the 2030s. Microsoft said on 19 October the decision related to a single site; Nscale had pledged £2 billion for it.

What is Israel’s 200 MW data centre cap?

A proposed Electricity Authority rule limiting any new data centre to 200 MW, after developers requested 27,000 MW of connections against 18,800 MW of installed generation. About 2,000 MW is approved, 1,000 MW more is allocated to large data centres, and applicants post NIS 2 million per MW.

What changed in Spain’s data centre decree?

The revised draft, sent to the Council of State on 26 October, applies from 10 MW instead of 1 MW, keeps the 80% hourly-matched renewables rule, lets older plants and six-year PPAs count, and raises the PUE limit from 1.15 to 1.25 until 2031 for sites contracting grid access before 2029.