Germany’s transmission operators have replaced first come, first served with a maturity score. Poland has made waiting in the queue expensive. For data centre land, the question is no longer who applied first but who can prove the project is real.
The end of the queue as we knew it
For two decades, grid capacity in Germany was allocated in the order in which applications arrived. At transmission level that principle is gone. Since 1 April 2026, the four transmission system operators 50Hertz, Amprion, TenneT and TransnetBW assess connection requests from large battery storage, data centres, electrolysers and other large consumers in fixed cycles under a joint maturity procedure, the Reifegradverfahren.
The reason is arithmetic. At the end of the third quarter of 2025, the operators held 717 connection requests with a combined capacity of around 270 GW. Large battery storage alone accounted for 545 requests and 211 GW, against an expected need of 41 to 94 GW in 2037 under the scenario framework for the grid development plan.
Data centres compete in that same pile. A hyperscale campus and a speculative storage project filed at the same substation used to be separated only by a time stamp. They are now separated by a score.
How the maturity score works
According to the summary of the procedure documentation published by law firm CMS, each cycle runs for about ten months: a three-month information and application phase, a five-month cluster study and an offer phase of around two months. The first application window closed on 30 June 2026, which puts the first capacity offers at around the turn of the year 2026/27.
Projects can earn up to 11 points in four categories: land security and permitting status (up to 3 points), technical plant and connection concept (up to 3), financial capability of the applicant (up to 3) and grid and system benefit (up to 2). Where a grid node is oversubscribed, the projects with the highest probability of realisation are served first. The industry already calls it first ready, first served.
The entry ticket is modest: a flat application fee of EUR 50,000 and a realisation security of EUR 1,500 per MW. For a 100 MW campus that adds up to EUR 200,000, a rounding error against Rhine-Main land prices. The filter is not the money. It is the evidence: secured land, advanced permits, a credible technical concept and a balance sheet behind the applicant.
Poland chose the price lever
Poland faced the same problem and reached for a different tool. The amendment to the Energy Law of 13 March 2026, in force since 30 April 2026, makes holding a place in the queue costly. According to BOŚ Bank’s summary of the new rules, applicants now pay a non-refundable application fee of PLN 1 per kW, capped at PLN 100,000, and an advance on the connection fee of PLN 60 per kW, with the cap doubled to PLN 6m. On top comes a new performance security of PLN 30 per kW up to 100 MW and PLN 60 per kW above that, capped at PLN 12m.
Time is rationed as well. Connection conditions are now valid for one year instead of two, and connection agreements contain investment milestones. Miss them and the agreement can be terminated. For a 100 MW project this means roughly PLN 9m, around EUR 2m, committed before construction starts.
The backdrop is the queue we described in our analysis of Poland’s grid queue: transmission operator PSE estimates data centre requests at 150 to 200 GW, while connection conditions have been issued for only about 6 GW. Operational capacity in Poland stood at around 250 MW in 2025.
Two filters, one direction
Germany filters by quality, Poland by cost and deadlines. The effect on land is the same: a connection application is no longer an asset in its own right. In Germany, a later but better prepared project can overtake an earlier one. In Poland, a holder of connection conditions who cannot fund the advance and the security, or who misses a milestone, loses the position.
Both regimes remove the option value of simply waiting in line. That is exactly what a large part of the land traded in recent years was priced on, as we showed in Germany Is Trading Land, Not Data Centres. The German Datacenter Association puts it plainly in its Datacenter Outlook Germany 2026/27, published on 1 October under the headline All Infrastructure Is Local: power and grid capacity, network connectivity, land and permitting decide locally whether announced capacity is ever built.
The new rules are not free of friction. CMS points out that several criteria leave room for interpretation, that the transfer of a grid reservation is not conclusively regulated and that material project changes can send a project back for reassessment. For transactions this matters: reserved capacity that cannot be transferred cleanly with the land or the project company is worth less at exit.
What this means for investors
- Buy maturity, not position. The date of an application has lost its value. What counts is the documented status of land control, permits, technical concept and financing, measured against the scoring criteria of the relevant operator.
- Price the commitment. In Poland, fees, advance and security are now real cash at risk with a one-year clock on connection conditions. They belong in the acquisition model, not in the footnotes.
- Check transferability before signing. Whether a reservation or connection agreement survives a share deal, an asset deal or a change of project scope should be a condition precedent, not an assumption.
- Work with the cycle calendar. German decisions now come in cycles. Missing an application window can cost most of a year, which is a longer delay than most business plans can absorb.
- System benefit earns points. On-site storage, flexible operation and flexible connection agreements, which Germany’s national data centre strategy of 18 March 2026 explicitly supports, improve the score and can shorten the path to power.
This intersection of real estate, engineering and energy is exactly where Prime East operates through its dedicated division PE Property Solutions: site and grid connection assessment, technical due diligence, structuring of operator and lease models, and transaction support across Germany and Poland.
Conclusion
Germany and Poland have reached the same conclusion by different routes: grid capacity goes to projects that are demonstrably ready, not to those that queued earliest. For investors this is good news with a condition attached. Speculative applications will be cleared out and real projects will reach power sooner, but only for owners who can document maturity. Over the coming months, as the first German cycle produces its offers and the Polish one-year deadlines begin to bite, the market will see which sites were projects and which were only positions.
Talk to us
Are you planning a data centre investment, or do you hold a site with grid potential in Germany or Poland? Prime East assesses sites, grid connection status and exit routes, and brings investors, operators and landowners together. Contact our team for a confidential discussion of your investment or project enquiry.
Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute investment, legal or tax advice. All figures are based on publicly available sources.
Sources
- TenneT: Transmission system operators introduce maturity procedure for grid connection requests from storage and large consumers
- TransnetBW: Maturity procedure (Reifegradverfahren)
- CMS: New maturity procedure for grid connections to the transmission grid
- Energie und Recht: Grid connection of data centres and the maturity procedure
- AP-Verlag / CBRE: Power becomes the currency of location
- German Datacenter Association: Datacenter Outlook Germany 2026/27
- Netzpalaver: Datacenter Outlook Germany 2026/27, data centre infrastructure becomes a question of location
- BOŚ Bank: What the 2026 amendment to the Polish Energy Law changes for grid connections
- WysokieNapiecie.pl: Will Polish and European grids bend under the pressure of data centres?
- Prime East: Poland’s grid queue, 150 gigawatts on paper and not a single connection contract
