In data center development the scarce item is no longer land or a building. It's time on the grid. People call it speed to power, and in Europe the numbers behind the phrase are long.
How long the wait is
The IEA put a number on it in November 2025. In the five biggest data center hubs, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, developers face queues for a grid connection that average seven to ten years.
CBRE's market data for the second quarter of 2026 points the same way. It names a lack of available power as the primary reason for the gap between supply and demand in Europe, which makes it hard for developers and operators to build in good time. It adds that there is effectively no wholesale supply in Europe. On Frankfurt, it writes that providers typically have to wait years in many instances to secure the power and the permits they need.
Where the capacity went instead
When the big hubs can't deliver, supply is delivered elsewhere. CBRE counted 685 MW of colocation and hyperscaler self-build supply delivered in Europe in the second quarter of 2026. Of that, 37 percent, or 252 MW, came in the five big hubs. The other 63 percent was delivered in the rest of Europe, which CBRE reads as a continued shift towards parts of the continent with an abundance of available power.
Demand moved the same way. Markets outside the five hubs made up 55 percent of continental European take-up in the quarter, and CBRE notes that take-up in Norway grew too.
The newest buyers are the clearest case. Capacity sold to what CBRE calls neocloud providers, the AI-focused infrastructure companies, reached 420 MW in the first half of 2026, against 89 MW in the same period of 2025. CBRE says the majority of the capacity that neoclouds have contracted, or that will be built for them, is in the Nordics, where lower-cost renewable power is often available in greater abundance than elsewhere in Europe.
The queue is the constraint, and the queue is changing
The European Commission presented its European Grids Package on 10 December 2025. Its guidance on efficient and timely grid connections recommends applying a first ready, first served principle, with open maturity criteria and a regular check on the queues. The Commission's page on the package cites Ember for connection queues in at least 16 EU countries as of mid-2026.
The Nordic operators are moving in that direction. In Norway, a connection request only gets a reservation or a queue place once the grid company judges it mature, and since January 2025 the place is withdrawn, after advance notice, if the project drifts significantly from the maturity criteria and the cause is the customer's responsibility or risk. In Sweden, Svenska kraftnät recommended in 2024 that the first complete application gets priority and that a reservation ends when the requirements stop being met, and in May 2026 it proposed capacity zones where readiness decides who gets the capacity. In Finland, Fingrid agrees capacity for a project only after its permits are legally in force, and added a conditional agreement in June 2025 for very large projects with long permit processes.
The detail of each is in the Nordic grids side by side. In our reading, the common thread is that the line used to reward whoever asked first and is starting to reward whoever can show progress.
What it means for where capacity gets built
Our reading, not the operators': a project that can show readiness moves faster than one that only holds a place, and a site with a real connection position is worth more attention than a site with a promising map. That's why we start with the site and its connection, and why the date and status of a claim matter as much as its size.
We're acquiring capacity across Europe, with a team on the ground in Northern Norway. Have land or a site with power? The form is on our page for powered land acquisition.
Quick answers
What is speed to power?
A shorthand for how fast a project can get the electricity it needs. In Europe the limit is mostly the grid connection, which the IEA says averages seven to ten years in the five largest data center hubs.
How long does a grid connection take in Europe?
In Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, queues average seven to ten years according to the IEA, November 2025. Elsewhere it varies by country and by operator.
Where is new data center capacity being built in Europe?
Increasingly outside the five biggest hubs. CBRE counted 63 percent of the supply delivered in the second quarter of 2026 in the rest of Europe, and says most capacity contracted by neoclouds is in the Nordics.
Related: Europe's Data Center Bottleneck: Grid Access, The Nordic Grids Side by Side and our page on land development.
Sources
All pages opened and read on 17 October 2026, except the IEA commentary, read on 13 October.
- IEA, "Overcoming energy constraints is key to delivering on Europe's data centre goals", commentary, November 2025: average connection queues of seven to ten years in the FLAP-D hubs. iea.org
- CBRE Research, "Europe Data Centres Figures", Q2 2026: 685 MW delivered, 63 percent outside FLAPD, take-up, neocloud signings of 420 MW against 89 MW, lack of available power, Frankfurt. cbre.com
- European Commission, "European grids": European Grids Package presented on 10 December 2025; guidance C/2025/8473 recommending first-ready first-served; queues in at least 16 EU countries as of mid-2026 (citing Ember, 2026). europa.eu
- Lovdata, Forskrift om nettregulering og energimarkedet (NEM), FOR-2019-10-24-1413, § 3-4 (in force 1 January 2025). lovdata.no
- Svenska kraftnät, recommendations to grid companies, 31 January 2024, and webinar of 26 May 2026 on capacity zones and a "ready first" competition. svk.se
- Fingrid, news of 26 June 2025 on the conditional connection agreement model: capacity agreed once permits are in legal force. fingrid.fi
Figures as published by the IEA, CBRE and the European Commission. Rules and pages as read on 17 October 2026.