AI boom and electricity: Why Germany is not Texas
In the USA, data centers are being built with their own power supply. This is hardly possible in Germany. However, investors are not remaining idle.
Exhaust plume at the Bremen-Hastedt power plant.
(Image: anw / heise online)
In the USA, there are plans for power plants that will never go to the public grid. Instead, they are to be used exclusively for new data centers as so-called "off-grid power plants". According to industry data, 47 such projects are currently known. In Germany, too, consideration is being given to how the energy demand of new data centers can be met with unconventional methods. However, the general conditions here are significantly different in some respects than in the USA.
What is currently springing up from the ground in Texas and West Virginia would only be possible in Germany under significantly stricter regulatory and economic conditions. The Energy Industry Act (EnWG) sets clear requirements: operators of large electricity generation plants are subject to strict approval procedures, emission regulations, and the rules of European emissions trading (EU-ETS). These make fossil-based self-generation of electricity on a gigawatt scale significantly more expensive financially than in the USA.
Not left behind, but grid-complementary
In addition, there is EU state aid law: the state relief with which US federal states like West Virginia have waved through off-grid projects could potentially be challenged as inadmissible state aid in the EU. And the Federal Network Agency ensures that electricity generation and grid operation remain cleanly separated – which complicates the US model, where the power plant and data center are in the same hands.
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Even if data centers in Germany whose energy supply is completely off-grid remain unlikely, a trend towards their own energy supply is also noticeable in this country. The US operator CyrusOne, for example, is planning its own combined system for generating electricity, heat, and cooling in Frankfurt – in cooperation with the energy provider Eon. This would not be disconnected from the grid, but would complement it.
Gas turbines are becoming scarce
According to the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), which published updated data in January 2026, gas power plant capacities of up to 1,950 megawatts are announced or under construction for data centers in Mainz, Frankfurt, Birstein, Leipheim, and Großkrotzenburg. This corresponds to almost 13 percent of the total German gas power plant expansion.
In addition, there is a global supply problem that could affect Germany: Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch pointed out back in autumn 2025 that around a third of all slot reservations for gas turbines are related to data centers. AI corporations are thus buying up exactly the turbines that Germany urgently needs for its own energy transition power plant strategy.
Independent island in case of failure
Since complete grid independence is neither regulatorily nor economically realistic in Europe in the short term, the industry is taking a different approach here: so-called microgrids. These are campus-owned power grids that remain connected to the public grid but can function as an independent island in case of failure.
Battery storage systems stabilize the supply. Gas power plants or – prospectively – hydrogen-capable plants take over the base load. EnBW and RWE are explicitly planning such plants as "anchors" for data center clusters. Such solutions indirectly affect electricity customers: those who afford their own microgrid relieve the public grid, but also pay less grid fees. The costs for the remaining users increase.
(mki)
