Google Middenmeer data center, Middenmeer, North Holland

Google's data center in Middenmeer, North Holland, in the Netherlands, went into operation in December 2020, the company's second in the country after Eemshaven, DCD reported. It sits at Tussenweg 8 on the Agriport A7 industrial estate in the municipality of Hollands Kroon. Google says it has invested more than 500 million euros in the Middenmeer site.

A Google spokesperson told DCD at the opening that the data center is air-cooled and reuses its waste heat to warm the office space for its 125 employees. Google said it would be powered through four renewable energy supply agreements representing around 130MW, including wind and solar in Delfzijl and wind farms in Zeeland. The municipality describes Google's Tussenweg site and Microsoft's, at subarea B1, as two of the largest data centers in the Netherlands, together providing more than 500 permanent jobs and 200 to 300 temporary ones during construction.

The water is the part the municipality is careful about. Cooling water comes from PWN, the drinking water company, and the municipality notes that PWN puts households ahead of industry; one operator has built rainwater recycling at another site, and new buildings must be fitted with waste heat connections in case that heat is ever used. The Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier issues the permits for discharging water and watches its quality, and the Omgevingsdienst Noordzeekanaalgebied checks that permit conditions are kept. Both sites run on contractually fixed renewable electricity from the national grid through TenneT, with emergency diesel generators under safety rules overseen by the regional safety authority and the environmental service. After pressure the municipality agreed stricter requirements for new buildings: more greenery, better landscaping and screening, and buildings set further back from the motorway.

The province of North Holland had objected to the plan west of the A7, over traffic safety rather than water or power. It withdrew the objection on October 27, 2022, after the municipality agreed changes to the Agriport-N239 junction and to the crossings of the N239 with the A7 slip roads. The province set conditions on energy supply, water use, waste heat and how the building sits in the landscape, to be written into the permit, which had not been applied for at that point. LTO Noord's Hollands Kroon branch, the farmers' organisation, has opposed such projects over the loss of agricultural land.

The company says it runs an apprenticeship programme with local schools, has given 6.1 million euros in grants to the area between 2017 and 2022, and pays a nonprofit called Agrotheek to farm a demonstration plot next to the data center. Permits for new data center buildings at Agriport come from Hollands Kroon, with the water board and the regional environmental service overseeing water discharges and permit conditions.