Reporting requirements on the energy performance and sustainability of data centres for the Energy Efficiency Directive : Task C report: EU repository for the reporting obligation of data centres

Data centres are estimated to have the fastest growing energy consumption and carbon footprint across the whole ICT sector, mainly due to technological advances such as cloud computing and the rapid growth of the use of Internet services. In the EU, from 2010 to 2018 data centre energy consumption increased by 42% and is forecast to further increase by 28.2% by 2030, representing about 3.2% of the EU final electricity demand. Reducing the energy demand of ICT, including data centres, is an important step in achieving the ambitious climate targets of the EU - a reduction of overall GHG emissions of 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The European Green Deal and the Climate Law (Regulation (EU) 2021/1119) represents a major leap in that direction. As a part of the 'Fit for 55' package, the recast Energy Efficiency Directive (EED recast), includes new obligations that target data centres. To support sustainable development in the ICT sector, the Article 12 of the EED recast asks data centres to make information about their energy performance publicly available. These reporting requirements would apply to all DCs, old and new, whose IT installed power demand is above a threshold.