Île-de-France data centers electricity capacity, Digi Mart USA News (Île-de-France, France): In twenty years, the Île-de-France region has grown from about ten data centers to 151, as recorded on January 1, 2026. The rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence is expected to trigger a new acceleration.
According to the Institut Paris Region, installed power could reach at least 6.5 to 8 gigawatts by 2040, compared with 1.01 GW in 2025. The challenge now goes beyond building construction, as facilities must receive electricity without compromising other needs across the territory.
The region benefits from its proximity to Paris, its businesses and its financial center, which offer operators very low-latency communications. Major Internet backbones connect the region to the rest of the world, and its electrical network, organized around two very high-voltage rings, is another asset.
Île-de-France accounts for nearly 64% of the installed energy power of French data centers. The region benefits from national production presented as decarbonized or low-carbon at 95%, but it depends heavily on neighboring regions, since local renewable production covers only 2.3% of its electricity needs.
Some operators have already signed nuclear production allocation contracts, such as DATA4 with EDF. Most of their strategy, however, relies on PPAs, bilateral renewable electricity purchase contracts concluded for fifteen to twenty years.
All major operators present in Île-de-France use them, with about ten PPAs and hundreds of GWh subscribed.
In 2022, Île-de-France data centers consumed about 1.7 terawatt-hours, or 3% of regional electricity, more than triple their 2010 consumption. Projections reach 4.5 TWh in 2030 and about 8.2 TWh in 2035, with uncertainty tied to how quickly the sites fill up.
IT equipment absorbs about 60% of electricity, and the rest is used mainly for cooling. AI is sharply increasing the density of installations.
Racks at AI sites derived from high-performance computing that exceed 100 kW are considered energy-intensive, and a dedicated rack for this use could reach one megawatt by 2030, equal to an entire early-2000s data center.
On average, Île-de-France sites would use between 20 and 40% of the power to which they are connected. This underuse is not fixed, as operators plan to increase drawn power later by adding racks or expanding their sites.
Connection is becoming a selection factor. Projects below 40 MW generally fall under Enedis, while the most powerful are assigned to RTE.
New facilities place greater demands on the very high-voltage transmission network. In constrained areas, connection can take up to nine years, and an accelerated procedure could reduce this to four years for some projects above 400 MW.
Incomplete or speculative requests also clog the queues. In early 2026, RTE began a review of capacity allocation and proposed reforming connection rules, which remain under consultation.
The proposal would favor a “first ready, first served” principle to prioritize projects with the most reliable timelines.
The issue also affects industry and road freight, whose electrification requires high power, often in the same areas. Plaine Commune and the areas around the Le Bourget and Roissy airports are approaching their capacity limits.
Reinforcements are planned in southern Essonne and on the Saclay plateau, and southern Seine-et-Marne is also emerging as a new location for development. These infrastructures also draw on collective funding.
The average cost of a connection is 30 million euros, according to DRIEAT. The note states that 30% of the amounts committed for connection works are borne by the TURPE, representing 200 million euros for RTE network connections alone.
Recovering heat is not enough to erase the impacts. Since 2024, the European energy efficiency directive has required data centers above 500 kW to file an annual declaration covering energy, water and recovered heat.
Buildings of at least 1,000 m² also fall under the Éco énergie tertiaire scheme. Above 1 MW, data centers must recover their waste heat unless it is technically or economically unfeasible.
Yet only five heating networks in Île-de-France currently receive heat from data centers, with six additional projects announced. The main obstacle is that this heat is often available at around 30 °C, too low for conventional networks without a heat pump.
Distance and differing time horizons also play a role: a heating network is designed for several decades, while IT equipment is replaced much more quickly.
Backup generators, meanwhile, emit air pollutants and greenhouse gases during testing. New projects systematically replace fossil fuels with HVO, a biofuel similar to diesel, as part of an emissions-reduction approach that remains to be proven.
According to several recent assessments cited in the note, HVO would ultimately offer no environmental gain and could even emit more greenhouse gases and fine particles than conventional fuels. Refrigerants, noise and water needs complete this assessment.
AI could improve network management and accelerate certain energy innovations, but these benefits remain conditional, since growing usage could absorb the savings achieved. Driven by AI, digital needs and hosting policies, the number of data centers could quadruple in France by 2035, while their electrical power would be multiplied by six in Île-de-France.
Their development, however, faces component supply difficulties, connection delays and resource pressures. Local nuisances are already prompting opposition that could lead to restrictions on installations.
Ultimately, energy may be the deciding factor determining where facilities can be located. The note concludes that “Île-de-France has a card to play by setting its conditions for hosting data centers, provided it combines the physical sovereignty of data with reduced environmental impacts.”
