San Francisco's supervisors voted unanimously this week to implement a 45-day moratorium on data centre construction, with the possibility of extending it to 22 months. The freeze takes immediate effect in a metropolis that hosts both OpenAI and Anthropic, yet lacks even a basic inventory of its existing facilities. Meanwhile, Europe initiated its own restrictions earlier, driven by grid constraints rather than environmental concerns, only to discover it now faces the inverse predicament.

The moratorium halts two significant undertakings. NOVVA's Bayview facility at 400 Paul Avenue currently consumes 9 MW but had sought approval to expand to 36 MW. Separately, a 49.5 MW waterfront development in Dogpatch was in advanced permitting discussions with Mayor Daniel Lurie's administration as of August, according to reporting by the San Francisco Standard. Community advocates highlighted that Bayview-Hunters Point already faces substantial air pollution burdens.

Supervisor Shamann Walton of District 10 authored the measure, with co-sponsorship from Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder and Cheyenne Chen. Planning authorities will examine energy consumption, water usage, air quality impacts, land allocation and effects on neighbourhoods. A report detailing these findings must be completed by November.

We need to know what these impacts are. Until we know what that is, it needs to stop.

Supervisor Shamann Walton

The city cannot provide a definitive count of its data centres. Bloomberg's investigation uncovered no centralised registry, though the San Francisco Standard identified approximately six operational sites.

Europe's opposite problem

Europe encountered comparable restrictions earlier, but through a distinct mechanism. South Dublin County Council rejected Google's proposal for a third data centre at Grange Castle in 2024, citing inadequate electrical grid capacity as the primary concern rather than environmental quality.

Ireland's situation illustrates the severity. Data centres consumed 23% of the nation's metered electricity in 2025, compared to just 5% a decade earlier—surpassing the combined usage of all urban households, according to the Central Statistics Office.

Denmark took even more drastic measures. Energinet, the national grid operator, suspended all new connection agreements this year after facing a backlog of approximately 60 GW against peak national demand of 7 GW.

The situation then reversed course. Europe's actual bottleneck has become its inability to construct capacity swiftly enough. Nscale's £2B Essex facility, anchored by Microsoft as the primary tenant, cannot secure 90 MW delivery in time for its planned 2027 launch. In Britain, certain grid connection queues now stretch nearly a decade.

The European Commission aims to triple data centre capacity across the continent within seven years, requiring approximately EUR 200B in private sector investment. San Francisco, by contrast, maintains six known sites and no official registry of them.

Source: The Next Web