The petition
We are calling for Germany to require very large AI data centres to bear the grid-connection and attributable reinforcement costs created by their projects rather than allowing those costs to be shifted disproportionately onto households and ordinary businesses through network charges.
Why this matters
AI infrastructure can bring investment, computing capacity and new services to Germany. It can also create unusually concentrated electricity demand. The question is not whether data centres are good or bad. It is who should pay when a new large load requires substations, transmission upgrades, reserve capacity or accelerated local investment.
A fair cost principle
Where infrastructure is demonstrably required because of a particular hyperscale project, the developer should make a proportionate contribution reflecting that causation. Shared upgrades that benefit the wider system should remain shared. Regulators should publish the methodology so that neither data-centre operators nor existing customers are charged arbitrarily.
Do not turn cost allocation into a de facto ban
Germany also needs digital infrastructure. Excessive connection charges or unpredictable rules could send investment to neighbouring markets and leave German companies buying compute from abroad. The framework therefore needs transparent connection queues, predictable tariffs and a route for projects that provide flexibility, storage or their own generation to reduce their system costs.
The ask
Protect existing customers from avoidable cost shifting while giving serious AI infrastructure projects a clear route to connect. The party creating an exceptional new demand on the grid should not automatically be entitled to socialise all of the resulting infrastructure bill.
Read both sides of the debate
Before signing, read the strongest evidence-based arguments for and against this proposal.
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