The municipal council of Langenhorn in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany, has voted to continue pursuing the construction of a data center with up to 150MW of connected load.

Proposed by developers Uniq Land and Erschließungsgesellschaft Nordfriesland (EG.NF), the council’s approval of the data center on August 26 follows a period of consultation with residents, who initially expressed hostility to the project. DCD has approached the municipal authorities for comment.

“With the council’s decision, we now have a clear planning process in place for Langenhorn,” Uniq Land’s managing director, Jens Kampkötter, told DCD.

“The necessary studies are being prepared, the public will have the opportunity to give their input, and ultimately it will be up to the municipality to decide under what conditions the project can go ahead. We’ve already taken on board the concerns raised by local residents, particularly around distances to neighboring properties, building heights and noise, and these are being addressed as part of the planning process.”

Uniq Land has applied to build the data center in the district of Mönkebüll in Langenhorn municipality, though authorities in the latter have reserved the right to consider alternative sites in the area. Construction is set to begin in March 2028 at the earliest.

Plans for the facility to receive power from regional wind farms, and for further expansions of the site’s connection capacity to 300MW, are contingent on upgrades to the regional electricity grid, reports DataCenterInsider. The facility’s servers will be cooled using a waterless closed-loop system. A waste heat reuse system is also planned.

The Langenhorn facility’s possible impact on the surrounding landscape, as well as its distance from residents, water use and potential for noise pollution, will now be assessed by the municipal authorities.

Headquartered in Grünwald, Bavaria, Uniq Land is also pursuing the development of a 21MW data center in Frankfurt, and other projects of indeterminate compute capacity in Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf and the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northern Germany. The provisional approval of its development in Langenhorn follows a hostile reception for the facility at the town hall meeting called to discuss the project, with residents criticizing the proposed 27.5-meter (90ft) height of the two buildings on site and the transparency of the planning process.

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