Headquarters of the European Commission, one of the main institutions of the European Union (EU) Credit: HJBC via Shutterstock.com Europe’s data centers are to be graded on how much energy and water they use, under a rating scheme proposed on Monday by the European Commission. Any individual site drawing more than 500 kW is covered. What the rating measures is not only consumption but what a data center puts back: heat recovered and reused, clean generation it adds, and how far it can flex its own demand when the grid is under strain. The argument for taking the time to recover the heat is based on one figure: if about half of the heat that Europe’s data centers currently waste were recovered, it would meet the heating needs of four million households. “Tripling our data center capacity cannot mean tripling the pressure on our grids, our water and our energy bills,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition.
Tripling is not merely hypothetical; it is the stated plan: the EU aims to have three times its current capacity within five to seven years, a goal it frames as a matter of technological independence rather than as part of an energy policy. In 2024, European data centers used about 68 terawatt-hours of electricity, and the International Energy Agency forecasts this to rise to 114 TWh by 2030 due to AI, at which point the sector will account for more than 3% of all electricity consumed in the region. It is a delegated regulation and determines what takes place afterward; Parliament and the Council now have two months in which to examine it, and although they can object to the entire regulation, they cannot alter a single line of it. If it survives that stage, the individual data centers will have their labels applied in 2027, and a review of whether any of it is working will be completed by the end of 2028.
The fact is that having a rating does not mean that requirements are being imposed, since the Commission has separately put forward minimum performance standards for consultation, and it is precisely from that process that a real floor would arise; the deadline for this is 14 December. The Commission is also carrying out work on a tripartite agreement with the operators, the grid operators and the energy suppliers later this year, after the declaration of intent made in June. At the moment, the proposal makes data centers visible rather than smaller. “Digital sovereignty must go hand in hand with energy responsibility,” said energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen.
