Belgium's data centres consumed 4% of the country's electricity last year. By 2035, that number could hit 10% or more. If you're wondering what that means for your IT infrastructure plans, the short answer is: everything just got a lot more complicated.
Welcome to 2025, where data centres are suddenly competing with steel plants for electricity access.
The wake-up call Belgium didn't see coming
Belgium has been making headlines in tech news, and not for the usual reasons. Elia, Belgium's electricity transmission system operator, has proposed creating a specific "data centre" category with maximum network capacity allocations. In other words: there's a queue forming, and not everyone gets in.
The numbers tell the story. Since 2022, data centre connection requests have multiplied by nine. The capacity already reserved by data centres for 2034 exceeds double the 8 TWh originally planned in Belgium's network development roadmap.
To put this in perspective: data centres consumed about 3.2 TWh in 2023—roughly 4% of Belgium's total electricity consumption. That's already twice the European average. And here's where it gets interesting: by 2035, we're looking at anywhere between 7 and 15.5 TWh. At the high end, that's more than 10% of the country's entire electricity consumption.
Think about what that means. We could be dedicating one or two nuclear reactors just to keep our servers running.
Why Belgium became a data centre hub
Here's what happened: Belgium quietly became a Tier-2 hub for data centres. While Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin reached saturation (limited land and grid capacity), Belgium offered a viable alternative. Central location, established infrastructure, competitive pricing.
Google saw the opportunity early. Their campus in Saint-Ghislain has been running since 2010, and they've just announced an additional €5 billion investment in Belgian data centres to support their AI strategy. Microsoft isn't sitting idle either—three data centres currently under construction.
The Belgian Digital Infrastructure Association puts it bluntly: current energy demand from existing and planned data centres is ten times what the grid can actually deliver right now. Ten. Times.
What this means for your Monday morning
If you're working in IT in Belgium, whether you're a CTO, IT manager, or infrastructure engineer. This isn't just policy talk. This is about to affect how you do your job.
The capacity issue is real
Elia's proposal includes "flexible connections" for data centres. In practice, this means your connection can be limited or cut during peak demand periods. Your servers might lose power when the grid gets congested.
For new cloud projects, private data centres, HPC facilities, or backup infrastructure, you might find yourself waiting for grid capacity. The large hyperscalers are already reserving significant portions of available capacity. Smaller players face a different reality.
Green IT just became non-negotiable
Remember when "sustainability" was that nice-to-have checkbox in your RFP? Those days are over.
The EU's Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) now requires data centres with IT capacity of 500 kW or more to report annually on energy performance indicators: PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness), renewable energy share, waste heat recovery, the whole package.
In Wallonia, first reports were due September 15, 2024, with annual updates every May 15. Flanders and Brussels-Capital follow the same logic, just with different administrative portals.
The EU is also working on a data centre sustainability rating system and minimum performance standards. By 2026, expect a comprehensive "Data Centre Energy Efficiency Package" pushing for carbon neutrality by 2030.
Your infrastructure decisions just got way more complex
This changes the game for IT planning:
Multi-region redundancy becomes essential. If your Belgian data centre might face power limitations during peak hours, you need backup capacity elsewhere.
Hybrid cloud strategies shift from luxury to necessity. Splitting workloads between Belgium and other EU regions isn't just about resilience anymore—it's about energy risk management.
AI workload optimization matters now. Running massive training jobs? You might need to schedule them for off-peak hours or shift them to regions with more stable power access.
Vendor selection criteria need updating. PUE and renewable energy mix aren't nice-to-haves anymore. They're critical factors that affect your long-term operational viability.
The silver lining
Here's where it gets interesting for Belgian IT companies. Every challenge creates opportunities.
Green cloud expertise is about to become incredibly valuable. If you can position yourself as the provider who truly understands energy efficiency, EED compliance, and waste heat recovery, you've got a competitive edge.
Flexibility-as-a-service could be huge. Data centres that can modulate their consumption and provide grid flexibility services might actually get paid for it. There's a business model hiding in those "flexible connections."
Advisory services around EED compliance, energy reporting, and sustainable infrastructure design? That's a growth market right there.
What happens next
Belgium's federal grid development plan for 2028-2038 will address data centre consumption specifically. Energy Minister Mathieu Bihet has confirmed he'll be paying close attention when approving it.
Meanwhile, the rest of us need to start planning. Because whether you're managing internal IT infrastructure or selling cloud services, the rules of the game are changing.
The era of "plug it in and forget about it" is over. Welcome to the age of energy-aware IT.
Need help navigating these infrastructure changes?
At Sparagus, we connect IT professionals with opportunities that match the evolving demands of the Belgian tech market. Because understanding where the industry is headed is the first step to staying ahead.
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