Brandenburg

Brandenburg is the eastern German state that surrounds the city-state of Berlin, with Potsdam as its capital and largest city. It covers about 29,654 km² and had 2,556,747 residents at the end of 2024. As of October 2026 Dietmar Woidke of the SPD heads the state government as minister-president.

Developers looking beyond the crowded Frankfurt market have turned to the state for land, wind and solar output and closeness to Berlin's network hubs. At Trebbin, south of Berlin, building began in October 2026 under local building permits, while the state environment agency, the Landesamt für Umwelt Brandenburg, was still reviewing the operating permit under the Federal Immission Control Act.

The state has seen this order of events before: Tesla built its Grünheide car plant under early approvals and received its full emissions permit from Brandenburg in March 2022. Federal and EU rules now sit on top of the state review. Germany's 2023 Energy Efficiency Act sets efficiency and waste-heat duties for new data centres, and in September 2026 the European Commission adopted an A-to-G energy rating for large EU data centres from 2027.