Data Centres and Grid Flexibility

Large data centres are fast to build (two to three years, according to the IEA, faster than grid reinforcement; Source - IEA Special Report on Electrification (2026)) and demand tens to hundreds of megawatts at one site, so they test connection rules before any other customer group. They are also unusually flexible loads: most have batteries and UPS systems, and some have computing that can be paused or moved. This page covers how that flexibility is, or could be, used in Sweden and the EU. It does not cover the data-centre electricity forecast or the climate debate.

Why the grid cares

• Queue. Of 25,992 MW of consumption in Svk’s transmission queue on 1 September 2026, 6,984 MW was data centres, just over a quarter, and 5,169 MW of that was in SE3 (Source - Svk Ansökningskö Statistik (2026-09)).
• A connection must be offered. Under the connection obligation (Anslutningsplikt) a grid company cannot refuse, even where it requires a new heavy line, as in the planned Google site at Timrå, where DN reports a contractual build-out of up to 2 GW and the municipality gives 1,000 MW as the site’s potential (Source - DN Googles Datacenter Torsboda Timrå (2026)).
• Locational guidance and generation. The anvisningssystem proposal names data centres as a candidate category for guidance on where to connect (Anvisningssystem); a government assignment floated letting large users that arrange matching fossil-free production jump the queue (Source - Regeringsuppdrag Prissäkring Elmarknaden (2026)), and the minister quoted by DN said no tool exists to require that today.
• Existing connections as a shortcut. With new large connections taking years, data-centre investors are bidding for Uniper, whose Swedish hydro and nuclear stakes come with grid connections already in place; analysts quoted by Affärsvärlden call electricity and grid capacity the main bottleneck. The same article gives a forecast for Sweden’s data-centre capacity (IT power) of 482 MW in 2024 to 1,621 MW in 2031 (EUDCA / Pb7 Research, second-hand), against the 75-180 MW reserve-market potential below, and reports that Finland is proposing to rank data centres below other industry in its connection system, per one adviser (Source - Affärsvärlden Uniper Bidders and Data Centres (2026)).
• EU framing. In the Commission’s proposal on electricity bills, regulators may prioritise categories of user in congested areas, with data centres one of the listed categories, and must keep flexible connection agreements (Art. 6a of Directive 2019/944) available (Source - COM(2026)600 Future-Proofing Electricity Bills (2026)).

Two ways data centres provide flexibility

Ancillary services

An Energiforsk and RISE guideline puts the share of Swedish data centres that could join reserve markets with limited technical measures at 75 MW (hyperscalers excluded) to 180 MW (hyperscalers included), based on 2020 installed-power data (Source - Energiforsk 2025-1089 Datacenter som Flexibilitetskapacitet (2025)). Batteries in UPS systems are the simplest resource; HPC and crypto sites can also pause or down-clock computation, while co-location sites are bound by customer contracts that often forbid it. In the ten interviews, larger sites cared less about revenue and more about supporting the grid, and FCR-D payments in late 2024 were about a tenth of their 2023 level. See Demand Response and Balancing Markets.

Flexible connection

Agora Energiewende and Deloitte modelled a Mandated Flexibility case in which data centres accept a flexible connection agreement and are curtailed in about 1.5 % of hours, around 120 hours a year per country, and affect 0.6 % of their demand: peak contribution falls by 45 % on average and 4 GW of thermal capacity becomes redundant by 2035, worth about EUR 500 million a year across 11 countries. A second case with continuous optimisation of about 20 % of load saves up to EUR 1.7 billion a year. The study finds flexible connection agreements in at least 15 member states but not adapted to data centres, and recommends harmonised templates (Source - Agora Deloitte Data Centre Flexibility in Europe (2026)). General design questions are on Flexible Connection Agreements.

In Sweden, Svk’s June 2025 pre-study sets out how a conditional connection could work for large loads on the transmission grid: curtailment when an overload risk exists, activated last and preferably automatically, no queue priority, no tariff relief, and selection on near-term need and at least two years earlier commissioning. The report does not mention data centres (Source - Svk Villkorade Anslutningsavtal Förstudie (2025)); see also Villkorade Avtal and Svk Transmission Grid Planning.

Open questions

• Whether Svk or the grid companies will offer a connection variant designed for data centres, and on what terms.
• How to treat a customer who offers flexibility in a congested area when the queue order is first-come-first-served.
• Whether large new users will be required to arrange new generation.

Data gaps

• Svk’s or Ei’s position on conditional or flexible connection for data centres specifically (the 2025 pre-study does not cover them), and the outcome of the pilot agreements Svk planned to start with
• Measured flexibility from Swedish data centres in the reserve markets since 2025, to replace the 75-180 MW scenario
• The Swedish-specific results in the Agora/Deloitte country modelling, if any (the sections on country results were not read)

Related pages

• Flexible Connection Agreements, Villkorade Avtal, Anslutningsplikt, Anvisningssystem, Capacity Maps
• Svk Transmission Grid Planning, Demand Response, Energy Storage