Lower Austria SPÖ sets nine conditions for data centres

Lower Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) has set out nine criteria for supporting data centre projects, including a requirement that operators secure their own additional electricity supply, ORF reported on Wednesday.

“Anyone making profits from data centres must also bear the costs of electricity supply, infrastructure and protecting the public,” state party leader and state councillor Sven Hergovich said. Operators should pay all costs for electricity connections, grid expansion, roads, water and wastewater services. Supply for existing households and businesses must remain secure and take priority, the party said.

The proposal says drinking water from the public supply should not be wasted on routine cooling. It also calls for data centres’ waste heat to be used for district or local heating, binding noise protection rules and priority for previously sealed land when choosing locations.

Municipalities should also receive a regular infrastructure levy, according to the paper, which was drawn up with experts. Hergovich said the SPÖ would support location ordinances for new data centres only if its criteria were met. The party said it also wanted to prompt a broad debate on the issue.

Lower Austria’s state parliament approved rules for data centre locations in April. Under those rules, municipalities regulate small centres of up to 0.5 hectares. They also oversee medium-sized centres of up to three hectares, using a special zoning category and coordinating with the state. The state directly controls projects larger than three hectares through individual location ordinances.

Kurt Hackl, parliamentary group leader for the Lower Austrian ÖVP, said the SPÖ had not supported the rules in the state parliament. He said the state’s data centre strategy had curbed uncontrolled development and that strict rules ensured local participation and development only where the necessary infrastructure was available.