Construction of a new municipal data center has commenced in Lower Saxony, Germany.Commissioned as part of the municipality of Emsland’s wider upgrade of its IT infrastructure, the facility in Meppen is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027 at a total cost of €3.4 million ($3.8m).The local authorities released no information about the data center’s projected power capacity.DCD has approached the municipality of Emsland for comment.The data center will be built as an addition to the Meppen district administration building, occupying 7,060 sq ft (655 sqm) across three floors.That structure is designated as critical infrastructure, which, under German law, requires the municipality to guard against its failure or impairment as a result of outside interference or natural disasters.In a recent press release, district administrator Marc-André Burgdorf argued that the construction of the new data center would guarantee the municipality’s compliance with critical infrastructure requirements. “This will make our data and power supply crisis-proof for the coming decades,” said Burgdorf.Construction costs for the data center are estimated at €2.24 million ($2.56m), with an additional €1.2 million ($1.37m) earmarked for technical equipment, including an uninterruptible power supply. Access to the data center’s secure area, meanwhile, is secured using two-factor authentication, reported WosLosIn. Two of the building’s three floors will house office space, while the third will host the servers themselves.The market for data centers in Lower Saxony remains small compared with the rest of Germany, with DataCenters.com listing nine operational and planned facilities in the region. The latter should soon include a 500MW project announced by renewable energy developer Telis Energie Deutschland and a large facility of unknown compute proposed for the town of Wilhelmshaven.Learn more about the data center market in Switzerland and the wider DACH region, and meet with other executives and experts at the DCN Zurich event later this year.