Germany’s EEA: will inefficient data centers become obsolete?

Over the past few years, legislators in Europe have been working on a recast of the European Efficiency Directive (EED), which has major implications for data center owners and operators. It was finally passed into law in October. The directive requires national governments in the EU to pass their own laws to enact the provisions. Germany has not only moved first but has set strict and imposing conditions that have alarmed many in the sector.

Germany passed the “Law to increase energy efficiency and amend the Energy Services Act (ESA) amendments” (hereafter referred to as the Energy Efficiency Act, EEA), incorporating the EU’s EED recast requirements into law and setting additional data reporting requirements and operational thresholds. The thresholds make many legacy enterprise data centers obsolete, requiring operators to upgrade or move to compliant facilities.