European Data Centre Regulation Tracker: Rules, Status, Deadlines

Key takeaways

• The EU’s rating scheme for data centres was adopted by the Commission as a delegated regulation on 21 September 2026. It takes effect once the European Parliament and Council scrutiny period ends without objection.
• EU minimum performance standards for data centres do not exist yet. A consultation and call for evidence opened on 21 September 2026, runs until 14 December 2026, and a legislative proposal is planned for the second quarter of 2027.
• Germany’s EnEfG already requires existing data centres to reach a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.5 by 1 July 2027 and 1.3 by 1 July 2030. A bill to relax those figures to 1.6 and 1.4 had its first reading on 24 September 2026, but it is not law.
• France’s Décret n° 2025-1382 sets a 500 kW threshold for annual reporting and a 1 MW threshold for waste-heat valorisation. An Energy Reuse Factor of at least 0.20 is deemed compliant, and fines for non-compliance reach €50,000.
• Ireland requires new connecting data centres to match at least 80% of annual demand with additional renewable-electricity projects. The Netherlands restricts new hyperscale sites nationally to two designated areas.

Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act already sets a binding ceiling on data centre efficiency: a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.5 from 1 July 2027 for any site that started operating before mid-2026, tightening to 1.3 by 2030. That figure is in force today. Next to it sit eleven other EU and national instruments at very different stages: some already binding, one adopted but still going through parliamentary scrutiny, one open for public consultation with no numbers attached yet, and one still a bill working through a German committee. This page tracks all of them for European data-centre operators. Each entry below states its exact threshold, the metric it uses, and the next date that matters.

Last checked: 26 September 2026. We update this page when a rule’s status changes.

Status at a glance

Dates to watch

• 5 October 2026: Bundestag committee hearing on Drucksache 21/8027, the bill to relax Germany’s PUE targets.
• 14 December 2026: the EU Commission’s minimum performance standards consultation and call for evidence closes.
• 1 January 2027: Germany’s EnEfG 100% renewable-electricity requirement takes effect.
• 1 July 2027: Germany’s EnEfG PUE ≤1.5 deadline for sites that started operating before 1 July 2026, unless Drucksache 21/8027 passes first.
• Second quarter of 2027: the EU Commission’s planned publication of its minimum performance standards legislative proposal.
• 1 October 2027: France’s cost-benefit analysis deadline for data centres with permits filed before 1 January 2026.
• 1 July 2030: Germany’s EnEfG PUE ≤1.3 deadline for the same pre-mid-2026 sites, or 1.4 if the relaxing bill passes.

Every year: Germany’s register report is due by 31 March, and the EU database and French reports by 15 May, each covering the previous calendar year.

European Union

Article 12 of Directive (EU) 2023/1791, the Energy Efficiency Directive, applies to every data centre in the EU with an installed IT power demand of at least 500 kW. It requires the operator to publish site information and key performance indicators every year. The operative mechanics sit in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364, which sets 7 identification items and 24 KPIs, submitted to the European database by 15 May each year, after a first cycle on 15 September 2024. Our EED reporting guide covers what to report and how the four sustainability indicators are calculated.

A second, separate threshold applies to waste heat. Article 26(6) of the same Directive requires data centres with a total rated energy input exceeding 1 MW to use their waste heat, unless a cost-benefit assessment shows that is not feasible. Total rated energy input is a whole-facility figure, not the installed IT power used for the reporting threshold, and the two should not be read as the same number.

On 21 September 2026 the Commission adopted a delegated regulation establishing a common Union rating scheme for data centres, amending the 2024 Delegated Regulation. It builds on the KPIs already reported and, in the Commission’s own words, will not involve any additional burden on Member States and data centre operators. A delegated regulation of this kind applies once the European Parliament and Council’s scrutiny period ends without objection, a stage it has not yet cleared.

Minimum performance standards, the step beyond reporting and rating, do not exist yet. The Commission opened a public consultation and call for evidence on 21 September 2026, open until 14 December 2026, with a legislative proposal planned for the second quarter of 2027. No binding numbers have been set.

The Commission also adopted a proposal for a Cloud and AI Development Act on 3 June 2026, COM(2026) 502, now with the European Parliament and Council. It is not a data centre energy rule on its own. The Commission describes it as a measure that will reinforce energy-efficient data centre capacity, one strand of a broader cloud and AI sovereignty package.

For investors and operators reporting under the EU Taxonomy, the technical screening criteria for Activity 8.1, data processing, hosting and related activities, rely on the EU Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres; the exact conditions are in Annex I of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/2139.

Germany

Germany’s Energieeffizienzgesetz (EnEfG) defines a data centre from 300 kW of non-redundant rated connection power, a lower bar than the EU’s 500 kW reporting threshold. Section 11 sets the PUE limits: sites that started operating before 1 July 2026 must reach a PUE of 1.5 or lower from 1 July 2027, and 1.3 or lower from 1 July 2030. Sites starting from 1 July 2026 face a tighter PUE of 1.2, plus a minimum reused-energy share rising from 10% from 1 July 2026, to 15% from 1 July 2027, to 20% from 1 July 2028.

The same section requires operators to cover their electricity consumption with renewable energy: 50% from 1 January 2024, rising to 100% from 1 January 2027.

Section 12 requires every operator to set up an energy or environmental management system by 1 July 2025. Validation of that system became mandatory from 1 January 2026 for data centres of 1 MW or more, and for publicly owned or operated sites of 300 kW or more. IT operators running equipment inside someone else’s data centre face the same validation duty above 500 kW, or 300 kW for public bodies.

Section 13 sets a standing annual reporting deadline of 31 March each year, covering the previous calendar year, feeding into the national Energieeffizienzregister für Rechenzentren under Section 14, which in turn passes the data to the European database.

A bill to relax the Section 11 PUE limits to 1.6 from 2027 and 1.4 from 2030, Drucksache 21/8027, had its first reading in the Bundestag on 24 September 2026 and was referred to the Committee for Economics and Energy, which holds a public hearing on 5 October 2026. It is a proposal, not law. The figures in force today remain 1.5 and 1.3.

France

Articles L236-1 to L236-3 of the Code de l’énergie set France’s data centre duties. L236-1 requires annual reporting from data centres with at least 500 kW of installed power, assessed at the level of the operator’s SIRET business registration number, with the report due by 15 May each year for the preceding calendar year.

L236-2 requires waste-heat valorisation from data centres with at least 1 MW of installed power. Décret n° 2025-1382 du 29 décembre 2025 sets the operating detail: an Energy Reuse Factor of at least 0.20 is deemed to satisfy the duty, a threshold the government can raise to as much as 0.40 by ministerial order. Data centres with permits filed before 1 January 2026 have until 1 October 2027 to complete a cost-benefit analysis of using their waste heat.

L236-3 sets fines of up to €50,000 per data centre for non-compliance.

Ireland

Ireland’s Commission for Regulation of Utilities, the CRU, published a decision on 12 December 2025 covering new data centres applying to connect to the electricity grid. According to the CRU, data centres seeking a new connection will be required to provide on-site or near-site dispatchable generation or storage matched to their requested import demand, and to match at least 80% of their annual electricity demand with additional renewable-electricity projects. The decision paper sets how these duties scale with the size of the requested connection.

Netherlands

The Netherlands restricts where new hyperscale data centres can be built. An instruction rule added to the Besluit kwaliteit leefomgeving by a decree of 20 December 2023, Staatsblad 2023, 492, prevents Dutch municipalities from accommodating new hyperscale data centres in their environment plans, except in two designated areas: part of the municipality of Het Hogeland in Groningen, and the Agriport locations in Hollands Kroon, Noord-Holland. For a site search across borders, our data-centre siting cost map ranks European countries by modelled electricity cost and carbon emissions.

What this means for an existing air-cooled site

Take a German site that started operating in 2020 and runs an annual PUE of 1.55 today. Under the law in force, it has until 1 July 2027 to bring that down to 1.5, and until 1 July 2030 to reach 1.3. If Drucksache 21/8027 becomes law before those dates, the targets loosen to 1.6 and 1.4, but nothing in force today lets the operator plan around a bill that has only had its first reading.

Our containment and liquid cooling worked case sets out how far each retrofit actually moves an existing hall’s PUE. The reporting duty applies regardless of which jurisdiction’s efficiency targets a site is chasing: any EU site with at least 500 kW of installed IT power reports to the European database every 15 May, whether or not it also answers to Germany’s stricter national rules.