Netherlands Province Noord Tender

The province of Noord-Holland was the first province to draw up a data center strategy.Noord-Holland wants to become the most sustainable and innovative data center hub in Europe and therefore sets high standards for the arrival of new data centers. The province presented a draft data center strategy in June. This document has been discussed with a large number of stakeholders. Their input led to a few adjustments. The basic premise of the strategy remains unchanged. Deputy Ilse Zaal Digitalization has a major and growing impact on the province of Noord-Holland both for our residents and for our companies. This development requires a solid digital infrastructure. Data centers are important for this. But there are also downsides. In the data center strategy we are aiming for a balance between a solid foundation for a growing digital economy clustered growth with an eye for the landscape and achieving the leading position in sustainability and innovation.Better citizen participationThe strategy obliges the municipalities where data centers can still be established to make agreements with the province about the way in which the data centers will be integrated into the landscape and the use of energy water and the use of residual heat. The province makes additional agreements with the data center sector about sustainability performance. We aim to ensure compliance with the rules in zoning plans and in the area of the environment through licensing supervision and enforcement.Compared to the concept important changes in the document are The municipalities of Haarlem and Diemen have announced that they no longer want additional data centers. They are therefore no longer included as possible areas where new data centers may be built. The municipalities of Amsterdam Haarlemmermeer and Hollands Kroon are the municipalities where new data centers can still be established. The province does ask these municipalities to properly involve the environment in their plans in a participation process. A heat director has been appointed to encourage the use of residual heat from the data centers. The subject of water is also described in a broader and more substantive way in the document. For example we talk about the water system which encompasses the entirety of water use and discharge. The agreements from the data center strategy are laid down in the NH2022 Environmental Ordinance. Digitization strategyIn the period between the draft and final strategy the outgoing cabinet adopted the National Digitization Strategy. The outgoing cabinet leaves the drafting of specific data center strategies to the provinces and municipalities as they know best what is going on in the local environment. The provincial strategy and the national digitization strategy are aligned as much as possible. The Noord-Holland 2022-2024 Data Center Strategy will be submitted to the Provincial Council for a decision at the beginning of 2022 by the Provincial Executive.