Source: in-cyprus.philenews.com
The European Commission is putting new transparency rules in place for the bloc’s rapidly expanding data-centre industry. But the toughest limits on energy and water use won’t arrive until 2027, leaving Big Tech time to shape the rules.
The European Commission is moving to put Europe’s booming data-centre industry under greater scrutiny, introducing a new sustainability label designed to expose how much power and water the infrastructure behind Europe’s AI ambitions consumes. But the rules stop short of imposing binding limits on energy and water use.
From 21 September, data centres with more than 500 kilowatts of installed capacity that fall under the EU’s energy-efficiency reporting regime will receive an electronic sustainability label. The system is intended to make facilities easier to compare on electricity and water efficiency, as well as the sources of the power they consume.
The move comes as Brussels seeks to dramatically expand Europe’s data-centre capacity with the Commission aiming to triple the bloc’s capacity by 2035, part of a broader strategy to build European AI infrastructure and reduce dependence on foreign technology companies.
That expansion comes with a growing political problem: data centres are becoming major consumers of electricity and water at a time when Europe is already grappling with high energy costs, strained grids and growing resistance from communities hosting the facilities.
In 2024, European data centres consumed around 68 terawatt-hours of electricity. The EU expects that figure to rise to 114 TWh by 2030 — equivalent to roughly 3.2 percent of the bloc’s total electricity consumption, up from about 2.5 percent today. The Commission’s answer is transparency rather than hard limits.
Although data centres above the 500 kW threshold have been required to report energy-efficiency data since 2023, compliance has remained incomplete as enforcement falls largely on national authorities.
That leaves Brussels with a second problem: getting the industry to comply before the EU starts imposing actual performance requirements.
The Commission says those requirements will come in 2027, when it plans to introduce minimum performance standards for new data centres. The standards are intended to establish a regulatory floor, preventing new facilities from being built below specified efficiency thresholds.
Brussels wants both growth and restraint
The EU’s strategy is to make Europe a “leading AI continent” while ensuring that the infrastructure required to power that ambition does not overwhelm electricity grids, water supplies or local communities.
The new label will allow facilities to be assessed according to their energy and water efficiency and the carbon intensity of their electricity supply. Commission officials said low-emission sources, including nuclear power, can be reflected in the system.
But the more consequential question is what Brussels does in 2027.
Minimum-performance standards could give the EU a mechanism to prevent inefficient facilities from being built in the first place. Until then, companies will have time to adapt and to argue over the technical details that could determine how demanding those standards ultimately become.
The Commission is also looking at ways to make data centres part of the solution to Europe’s energy pressures.
Officials are examining whether facilities could provide greater flexibility to electricity grids and potentially reuse their waste heat. In the most ambitious scenario under consideration, waste heat from data centres could supply as many as four million European homes.
For Brussels, the challenge is increasingly clear: Europe needs more computing power to compete in AI, but the infrastructure behind that ambition is becoming an energy and resource issue in its own right.
The sustainability label is the first step, however, more questions and tensions are expected to rise over how much Europe’s data centres will be able able to consume.
(Source: European Commission)
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