Petition Against Giant Data Center on Former Northvolt Site

Plans to allow the American company Edgeconnex to build a gigantic data center with seven buildings on part of the old Northvolt site in Skellefteå are now meeting local opposition. Skellefteå resident Robin Åsén has launched a petition to stop the construction and warns that the data halls will consume up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity without creating significant numbers of permanent jobs in the area. In just a few days, over 400 people have signed the petition.

After battery manufacturer Northvolt’s bankruptcy, the question of what should happen to the industrial land and the extensive power capacity east of Skellefteå has become a hot controversy. Since the local newspaper Norran revealed that the American data center company Edgeconnex is moving forward with its plans to build a large data center on part of the former Northvolt site, reactions have quickly followed.

Robin Åsén from Skellefteå has started a protest list on the campaign site Mittskifte, demanding that Skellefteå municipal council, the municipality’s building committee, and the County Administrative Board in Västerbotten say no to continued construction and operating permits. In just a few days, signatures have streamed in—shortly before ten o’clock on Sunday morning, about 370 people had signed, and by lunchtime the number had surpassed 410 names.

Speaking to the newspaper, Robin Åsén emphasizes that he is deeply skeptical of the company’s promises about how many will actually get jobs at the facility.

– I find it very hard to believe the promises they have made about job opportunities, says Robin Åsén.

Seven data halls that consume as much electricity as a nuclear reactor

According to consultation documents submitted to the County Administrative Board and previously reported by SVT Västerbotten, Edgeconnex wants to build a total of seven separate data center buildings next to the battery company Lyten, about five kilometers east of central Skellefteå. Construction permits are already ready for the first two halls in phase one, which according to the schedule should be completed no later than March 2028, while an additional five buildings are planned to be completed by early 2031.

Each of the seven data halls is expected to require a power supply of between 96 and 150 megawatts with around-the-clock operation. When fully built, this amounts to a total power demand of between 672 and 1,050 megawatts—comparable to an entire Swedish nuclear reactor in Forsmark, which delivers just over 1,100 megawatts.

The petition’s initiator warns that this enormous power consumption will come from the same grid that supplies households and existing companies in Skellefteå and the rest of northern Sweden, which could push up electricity prices in the region. If the grid is insufficient during power peaks, extensive diesel-powered backup generators are also planned, which would mean both emissions and noise.

Dismissing the promise of a thousand jobs: ‘Only a few dozen permanent employees’

Edgeconnex—which is owned by the investment company EQT where the Wallenberg sphere’s power company Investor is the largest owner—has claimed that the establishment in Skellefteå will generate about 400 direct jobs and an additional 600 indirect jobs.

– We are firmly committed to building a new ecosystem that contributes to Skellefteå and Västerbotten, said the company’s Nordic head Robert Busz in a recent interview.

However, in the protest petition, the figures about 400 to 1,000 new jobs are dismissed as misleading. It is pointed out that the majority of employment consists of temporary construction jobs during the building phase, while completed data centers of this type are often operated with only a few dozen permanent staff on site since IT administration can be conducted remotely from other parts of the world.

In addition to wasteful electricity use and the few permanent jobs, the petition also highlights security and privacy risks, as it is still secret which customers will rent space in the halls. If the customers are American tech giants like Amazon, Meta, or Google, US authorities can, according to American law, request stored information via court orders without Swedish or European data protection laws offering any protection. The consultation process for the massive construction will continue through the autumn of 2026 until early 2027.

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