Europe intends to triple its data center capacity within five to seven years. On September 21, the European Commission set out how it plans to monitor that expansion: a common EU rating scheme that will attach a public electronic label, covering energy and water use, to every data center in the bloc with at least 500kW of installed IT power demand. The label provides ratings; it does not yet impose requirements. Binding minimum performance standards are a separate proposal, and the consultation on them opened only that day.
What the label will show
A delegated regulation establishes the rating scheme by supplementing the recast Energy Efficiency Directive and amending the 2024 regulation that created the European database on data centers. Labels will be generated automatically by the database by August 15, 2027, and every year thereafter, and will be publicly available, according to the law firm Arthur Cox, which reviewed both the draft and final texts. Sustainability indicators include Power Usage Effectiveness, Water Usage Effectiveness, the Energy Reuse Factor, the Renewable Energy Factor, and the Low-Emission Energy Factor, with labels also specifying whether a facility supplies flexibility services to the grid.
Because the indicators are drawn from data that operators already report, the Commission argues the scheme is cost-free to comply with: "By leveraging existing data, the rating scheme will not involve any additional burden on Member States and data center operators," it told the European Parliament and the Council in an accompanying report.
Nuclear makes the cut
The most substantive change between the draft and the adopted text is the addition of nuclear energy to the key performance indicators, Arthur Cox noted, with separate lines for nuclear consumption via guarantees of origin, power purchase agreements, and on-site sources. The firm flagged that operators will need to understand the time, geography, and asset-age conditions attached to the "new capacity" energy indicators, which may reshape how they procure PPAs and guarantees of origin.
Why now: 68TWh and rising
EU data centers consumed 68TWh of electricity in 2024, a figure the Commission expects to reach 114TWh by 2030, or 3.2% of the bloc's electricity demand, driven by the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence. The Commission also argues the sector could give back: reusing roughly half the waste heat from European data centers would match the total heating demand of 4 million European households.
"Tripling our data center capacity cannot mean tripling the pressure on our grids, our water, and our energy bills," said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen framed disclosure as a precondition: "Digital sovereignty must go hand in hand with energy responsibility."
Ratings first, requirements later
Green lawmakers welcomed the move while pressing for more. "Tech companies must no longer be allowed to treat their electricity and water consumption as a trade secret," Jutta Paulus, the Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur on the Energy Efficiency Regulation, told EUNews, calling transparency and binding efficiency standards "long-awaited measures."
The regulation now faces a two-month scrutiny period in which the Parliament and Council may object to the act but cannot amend it. The parallel consultation on minimum standards for new and retrofitted facilities closes on December 14, 2026, with a proposal expected in the second quarter of 2027. A first review of the rating scheme is due by the end of 2028.
Article edited by Ysi Chen
