On a Tuesday afternoon, the area of Christoupoli in Spata had been flooded with the voices of young children. The songs from the graduation ceremony of students from a large private school could be heard from one end to the other. Soon, a truck from the nearby construction sites managed to drown them out.
“The area is open and the sound travels,” Konstantinos Skrinis, a surveyor and resident of Christoupoli – a settlement surrounded by three data centers – tells To Vima. In the future, there could be four. The first of them, the one that has already acquired its structural frame – on an area of 30 stremmas and with a capacity of 12.5 MW – almost touches the yards of their homes. Between the building and the residential area there is only a narrow strip of road. Its image is the first thing the settlement’s residents see when they leave their homes. The other two data centers are located on the rear side of the settlement. In the first of these, which extends over 60 stremmas and, when it becomes operational, will have a capacity of 80 MW, archaeological inspections are continuing, while at the second, with a capacity of 25 MW, work is progressing and it is estimated that it will begin operation within 2027.
Strong reactions from residents
The reactions of the residents of Christoupoli, Spata, are strong, as they believe that the noise from the three centers, which will operate 24 hours a day, will create serious problems, especially during nighttime hours.
“Our biggest concern is, first of all, the noise. During the day, with the movement of vehicles, it somehow ‘gets lost’. But at night it is heard intensely within the quiet. That is why it concerns us directly, because of the proximity to the data centers. The other issues concerning energy and water, I believe, should concern all the surrounding areas – if not the entire Attica Basin,” Mr Skrinis emphasizes.
The residents, who have been in continuous consultations with the responsible authorities over the past year, have already appealed to the Council of State, requesting the annulment of a decision that allows data centers with a capacity below 20 MW not to prepare an environmental impact assessment. Reactions existed from the beginning as well from the management of a large private school located in the area, as well as from the Municipality of Spata-Artemida.
Water from EYDAP amid drought
“We are conducting a carrying-capacity study to see what and how much the area can withstand,” Dimitris Markou, the mayor of the area, tells To Vima, clarifying that the Municipality does not have a problem with these investments, provided that they do not burden residents’ lives. “We want a harmonious coexistence,” he notes.
Based on the information he himself has regarding water supply sources, “the companies do not use groundwater reserves, but instead take water from EYDAP, which they then improve.” However, this is a thorny issue due to the risk of water scarcity facing Attica, and it has triggered reactions from expert scientists.
“You cannot build a data center without having found the source of its water supply, and this source cannot come at the expense of the residents’ water supply,” comments Dimitris Koutsogiannis, emeritus professor of Hydrology at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).
According to Elisavet Feloni, assistant professor of Hydrology at the University of West Attica (UNIWA), the upcoming development of data centers in Greece brings to the forefront a critical and often unseen environmental challenge: these infrastructures are not only energy-intensive, but also water-intensive.
“In the international literature,” she notes, “we find evidence showing that for a typical large facility, the cooling needs of servers require up to 19 million liters of water per day – a quantity equivalent to the daily consumption of an entire city of 120,000 residents – placing enormous pressure on local water supply systems.”
As she points out, in Greece to date we have not seen sufficient initiatives for the analysis and management of the relevant hydrological risk, unlike other countries, such as neighboring Italy. As an “excellent example of good and progressive governance,” she cites the Lombardy Region, which created the first comprehensive regulatory framework for data centers.
This law, Ms Feloni explains, strategically directs investments toward redeveloped former industrial zones, gives priority to energy efficiency, water conservation, and the mandatory reuse of waste heat, for example through district heating networks.
