European data-centre markets, side by side
Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Zurich, Madrid and Helsinki for the same load, or pick up to six of twelve. Power cost, grid carbon, climate for cooling and the rules that apply, each from a named source. Markets only, never individual sites, and no single winner.
| Per market | FrankfurtGermany | AmsterdamNetherlands | ZurichSwitzerland | MadridSpain | HelsinkiFinland |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power cost | |||||
| Day-ahead wholesale price, meanEUR per MWh, 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Sep 2026 | 104.05 | 103.03 | 119.12 | 73.29 | 55.78 |
| Wholesale cost for your loada year at a flat load, before network charges, levies, taxes and margin | €948k | €939k | €1.09M | €668k | €508k |
| Business price before taxes and leviesEUR per kWh, 2026 first half, band 2,000 to 19,999 MWh | 0.1382 p | 0.1445 | Not in Eurostat | 0.1047 | 0.0842 |
| Business price after taxes and levies a business cannot recoverEUR per kWh, 2026 first half, VAT excluded | 0.1742 p | 0.1824 | Not in Eurostat | 0.1177 | 0.0852 |
| Cost for your load at that pricea year, all consumers in the band, not data centres | €1.59M | €1.66M | Not in Eurostat | €1.07M | €776k |
| Grid carbon | |||||
| Grid carbon intensity, 2025g CO2e per kWh, lifecycle, generation-based | 334 | 254 | 39 | 154 | 57 |
| Emissions for your loada year, if the load drew the national average | 3,044 t | 2,311 t | 356 t | 1,398 t | 521 t |
| Climate for cooling | |||||
| Hours a year above 27 °C dry-bulbmean of 2016 to 2025 | 282 | 80 | 168 | 1,117 | 35 |
| Hours a year above 32 °C dry-bulbmean of 2016 to 2025 | 51 | 8 | 11 | 441 | 0 |
| Worst year above 32 °C dry-bulbhours, any of 2016 to 2025 | 95 | 24 | 32 | 508 | 0 |
| Hours a year above 20 °C wet-bulbmean of 2016 to 2025, limit for evaporative cooling | 100 | 94 | 120 | 63 | 54 |
Bars compare the markets within one row and do not change with your scenario. p marks a value Eurostat flags as provisional. London has no wholesale series here, so its wholesale cells stay empty rather than borrow another source. Ireland’s wholesale mean covers 99.7% of the 12 months. Zurich and London have no Eurostat series, and Swiss network tariffs are not included yet.
How to read it
Wholesale is not your bill
The day-ahead price leaves out network charges, levies, taxes and the supplier’s margin. The Eurostat rows add them back, for the average business in the 2,000 to 19,999 MWh band, which is not the same as a data centre with its own contract.
Carbon here is a national average
Ember’s 2025 figure is lifecycle emissions of electricity generated in the country, divided by that generation. Imports are not counted, so Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands are neither charged for what they import nor credited for what they export. It is not market-based and not hourly. The live grid uses a different, production-based method by hour, so do not compare the two.
Climate hours are a screen
Hours above a threshold show how often outside air alone cannot hold that temperature before any approach allowance. They come from ERA5 reanalysis at a 0.25 degree grid cell near each city centre, which smooths urban extremes. Zurich has more hours above 20 °C wet-bulb than Madrid, so a dry-bulb view alone would mislead anyone planning evaporative cooling.
Rules that apply
| Where | Rule | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU: DE, NL, ES, FI | Reporting duty from 500 kW installed IT power, 7 items and 24 indicators, next report 15 May 2027 | In force | Directive (EU) 2023/1791 Art. 12; Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 |
| EU: DE, NL, ES, FI | Waste-heat use above 1 MW total rated energy input, unless a cost-benefit assessment shows it is not feasible | In force | Directive (EU) 2023/1791 Art. 26(6) |
| EU: DE, NL, ES, FI | Common rating scheme adopted 21 Sep 2026; in Parliament and Council scrutiny, extended 6 Oct | Adopted, not in force | Commission delegated regulation; see our tracker |
| Germany | PUE 1.5 or lower from 1 Jul 2027 and 1.3 from 1 Jul 2030 for sites running before 1 Jul 2026; 100% renewable electricity from 1 Jan 2027 | In force | EnEfG section 11 |
| Germany | Bill to relax the PUE limits to 1.6 and 1.4; committee hearing held 5 Oct 2026 | Proposed | Drucksache 21/8027 |
| Netherlands | New hyperscale data centres restricted nationally to two designated areas | In force | Staatsblad 2023, 492 |
| Spain | Draft Royal Decree for sites above 1 MW, including hourly matching with additional renewable generation; consultation closed in early September 2026 | Proposed | Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) announcement, August 2026 |
Checked 10 October 2026. The regulation tracker holds the detail and the next dates. Not covered yet: Swiss and UK rules (outside the EU, so the EED and the German act do not apply), Finnish data-centre tax treatment, Amsterdam city limits, and grid connection queues, which decide timing in several of these markets.
What this page does not say
- It does not rank the markets or name a best place for a megawatt. The differences that matter depend on your load, timing and risk.
- It is not a quote. No row is what a specific data centre pays.
- It says nothing about individual operators or sites, and nothing about grid capacity or vacancy.
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Sources and licences
Wholesale: Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de, CC BY 4.0, day-ahead prices for DE-LU, NL, CH, FR, IT-North, PL and DK2; Energy-Charts.info, Fraunhofer ISE, day-ahead prices for Spain, Finland, Ireland and Sweden SE3, used with the data owner’s permission; time-weighted mean over the delivery days 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026. Business prices: Eurostat, Electricity prices for non-household consumers, bi-annual data (DOI 10.2908/NRG_PC_205), band 2,000 to 19,999 MWh, accessed 10 October 2026, dataset updated 9 October 2026; reuse under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU, values as published. Grid carbon: Ember, Yearly electricity data (Europe), CC BY 4.0. Climate: contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information [2026]; ERA5 hourly data on single levels, DOI 10.24381/cds.adbb2d47, 2016 to 2025; neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use made of it. The default scenario is 1 MW of IT load, PUE 1.3 and 80% utilisation, which is 9,110 MWh a year at the meter.