LVV oversight unit challenges Lahti data centre permit

The oversight unit of Finland’s Permit and Supervisory Agency has appealed an environmental permit the agency granted to a data centre under construction in Lahti, Yle reported. The unit says the permit assessment was inadequate.

The appeal, filed with the Vaasa Administrative Court, concerns DayOne’s data centre in Kiveriö, a Lahti neighbourhood. The agency granted the permit in October. An environmental permit was required because the combined fuel input of the facility’s backup generators exceeds 50 megawatts. The appeal deadline was 11 November, and the unit’s filing was the only appeal.

The unit wants the permit to require the facility to make the most efficient possible use of most of the heat it produces. It also seeks stricter conditions for generator emissions, including a limit on nitrogen oxide emissions and a rule requiring the exhaust stack to be at least 1.5 times the height of the tallest nearby building if certain design requirements are not met.

Other demands include a noise-control plan for power outages, clearer conditions for stormwater management, changes to the risk-management requirements, and details on the number of backup generator stacks and their combined fuel input in the decision.

If the permit conditions are not changed, the unit is seeking to have the decision overturned and the case returned to the agency for reconsideration. The unit operates within the agency’s environmental division and has independent decision-making authority in its public-interest oversight role.

The data centre is already under construction in an industrial area beside a residential neighbourhood in Kiveriö.