WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE POLAND - news journal UPDATE - (en) Poland, FA: A GIANT DATA CENTER NEAR BELCHATÓW (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

London, Dublin, Amsterdam - what do these cities have in common? Current or recently ended moratoriums on the construction and connection of new data centers to the grid. The damage and costs these centers cause, coupled with the limited benefits to local communities, are fueling growing opposition to these types of investments worldwide. Perhaps this is why Poland is enjoying increasing interest in the data center industry. Lobbying organizations such as the Polish Data Center Association and companies with Polish and foreign capital are very active in this field.

Unfortunately, this interest has evolved into much more concrete plans to build a data center in Domiechowice, near Belchatów. The company behind the project is Data Center Belchatów, but in practice, it's an entity established specifically for the project. The real backers of the investment are the Lódz-based Globitel company/group (a telecommunications company also responsible for video surveillance projects, for example) and Exus Digital, a subsidiary of a Spanish renewable energy company with international capital.
The scale of the investment raises significant doubts from the outset - the planned connection capacity is 1 GW. This figure alone probably doesn't raise any concerns without context. The average daily energy consumption of a household, in bold estimates, is typically around 15-17 kWh. A data center with a target connection capacity of 500 MW, assuming the actual capacity is 400 MW per day, would consume approximately 9,600,000 kWh, roughly equivalent to almost the entire population of Lódz, which consumes 15-17 kWh per day.
Here, we're talking about twice the planned capacity. In reality, 1GW of power would necessitate the daily energy consumption of all Warsaw households. Currently, the world's largest data centers have a connection capacity approaching 500 MW, with record-holders reaching 1 GW. Where will the energy come from? The investor and politicians are counting on a nuclear power plant, which may replace the coal-fired power plant in 20-30 years. But what if it doesn't materialize? What impact will this investment have on the energy supply to local homes? We can only guess, but this doesn't point to a positive scenario.
And we're talking about several dozen hectares of forest near Belchatów. In a voivodeship that already faces significant problems with desertification, forest and water shortages, as well as large agricultural production and a strong livestock sector that consumes enormous amounts of water. Not to mention the impact of the Belchatów coal mine on water conditions and the formation of a cone of depression (a lowering of groundwater levels, which can only recover after extraction ceases). Data centers typically require large volumes of water for cooling. It's estimated that data centers with a daily connection capacity of close to 350 MW consume a volume of water equivalent to one and a half Olympic swimming pools (approximately 3.8 million liters of water) and the water consumption of an average household for over 100 years. All this just so we can watch disinformation videos and low-quality songs generated by AI.
Supporters and lobbyists for the unbridled growth of the data center industry in Poland sometimes argue that Poland's cooler climate will reduce water consumption compared to other data centers worldwide - rising temperatures caused by climate change and the increased risk of blackouts seem to elude them. In a similar vein, "investors" offer incentives, citing alleged job opportunities or the use of data centers for district heating in cities. All of this, of course, seems to be a distant future, much more distant and less tangible than the negative consequences.
Poland lacks comprehensive regulations regarding data centers; everything is based on zoning decisions and local plans. The Belchatów commune has deviated from the study's provisions and, in both the general plan and the local plan currently being processed, envisages the designation of an industrial zone. While the lack of a plan doesn't prevent the construction of a data center, it certainly seals the fate of the area.
Consultations on the local spatial development plan for the area where the data center is planned are ongoing until August 28, 2026.

https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2026/08/15/gigantyczne-centrum-danych-pod-belchatowem/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca