Microsoft, Amazon, and other big tech companies are demanding lower electricity bills in Europe and asking Brussels to intervene against the blockage of their data centers.

After years of all-out tax war in Brussels, US big tech companies have begun to shift from sticks to carrots in their dealings with the European Commission. Amazon, Microsoft, and other digital services giants took action this summer to try to guarantee preferential access for their data centers to the electricity grids of the EU27, a safeguard for one of their most promising businesses.

Data centers have become a vital component of any developed economy, but their massive consumption of critical resources, such as energy and water, has led some governments, like Spain's, to put them under scrutiny . They want to avoid an uncontrolled deployment that would have an irreversible impact on the territory and the stability of national electricity systems.

Big tech companies, both individually and through their employers' associations, have launched a barrage of petitions to the European Commission in recent weeks. They demand that the community body establish equal rules for access to electrical infrastructure across all the Twenty-Seven, equate their data centers with traditional industry for access to the same public aid, and that governments be held accountable for their investment or failure to invest in networks.

This is reflected in documents reviewed by EL MUNDO, which contain the contributions of these companies to the public consultation on the European Network Package , which closed this month. This is the legislative package that will set the pace for EU member states to modernize their electrical infrastructure and more quickly grant access that, currently, can be delayed by up to 10 years .

Bureaucratic slowness is one of the most repeated complaints. "Significant delays in some countries compared to others can divert investment toward countries with more predictable and shorter lead times, such as northern countries , to the detriment of southern countries, where administrations tend to be more overburdened," warns Microsoft, which aims to boost the capacity of its European centers—more than 200 built and announced—by 40% in two years.

Spain DC , the Spanish data center association, suggests that the European Commission periodically review data center integration in different countries. "In regions facing persistent network restrictions that could undermine the EU's digital objectives, targeted intervention or support at the EU level could be justified ," they argue.

Furthermore, the lobby , to which Amazon and Microsoft adhere, demands that data centers in Spain acquire the status of electro-intensive consumer —a category applied to strategic industrial activities highly exposed to electricity prices, such as steel or chemicals—so that they can enjoy the same discounts on their electricity bills, "tax exemptions," and "tariff reductions." This, they claim, would reward those technology companies that decide to invest in the EU, "where electricity prices are less competitive than in the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa."

In its document, Amazon Web Services (AWS) notes that it has committed investments worth €15.7 billion in Spain and another €17.8 billion in Germany, before suggesting that Europe needs to implement a centralized digital platform where the preselection of projects for grid connection is "automated" and requirements are "standard" across Europe. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft suggest using AI to streamline permitting. At this point, some companies even propose their own tools as a solution.

AWS also calls for "protection against network overload" due to excessive demands, for example, from battery storage systems, one of the biggest competitors of data centers in the electricity race.

As a whole, the big tech companies are demanding that all 27 countries apply the same criteria for accessing their networks "to avoid regulatory fragmentation." They want to move away from the current " first come, first served " model, with one that prioritizes the most advanced projects, including those with the greatest economic impact and those most aligned with the energy transition. They argue that the extremely high energy consumption of their data centers can contribute to electrifying European economies.

The call for equal rules across Europe is not trivial. In the case of Spain, the government has just launched a draft royal decree to establish requirements for data centers located in the country. They will have to demonstrate energy savings rates or efficient water use, as well as that they have fulfilled their initial promises of job creation or contributions to the local economy.