Meta Zeewolde data center, Zeewolde, Flevoland

Meta cancelled its planned data center at Zeewolde, a town in Flevoland in the Netherlands, in July 2022, three months after putting the project on hold amid public opposition, DutchNews reported. The campus would have spanned five data halls drawing 200MW at full build, the largest data center campus in the country.

Zeewolde's council had approved the zoning change in December 2021, for a campus of 166 hectares on farmland expected to create 400 permanent jobs. In March 2022 a political party opposing the project won an absolute majority in the local election. Tom Zonneveld, chair of the local party Leefbaar Zeewolde, which had campaigned against the plan, called the pause "a postponement and not an adjustment."

The fight moved to national politics. All but two parties in the Dutch Senate backed a motion asking Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government to halt the project until a national policy on data centres had been developed. Some environmental campaigners did not want the limited supply of sustainable power in the country to be used by a multinational. "This is a purely political decision," said Stijn Grove, managing director of the Dutch Data Center Association, adding that it had been made "largely because it is Facebook." The land Meta needed was owned by the government, and after lawmakers voted to stop site preparation, the government said it did not plan to sell it "at this time," DCD reported.

"When considering a location for a data center, our priority is a good match with the environment. Ultimately, we decided that building a data center in Zeewolde is not the right investment," Meta said. The project had squeezed in just before a ban on new data center construction in Flevoland province.