The European Commission is consulting until 23 April 2026 on a draft Delegated Regulation to develop a common EU scheme for rating the sustainability of data centres in Europe.
The draft Regulation is framed as a second step in the ruleset being developed under Article 33(3) of the Energy Efficiency Directive. The first step was the 2024 Delegated Regulation on the first phase of the establishment of a common Union rating scheme for data centres. The 2024 Regulation established a European database and set out obligations for operators of data centres with installed information technology power demand of at least 500 kW to sconclude information and key performance indicators to the database.
The Regulation now being consulted on sets out rules on how the information in the database will be utilized to rate data centres.
Data centres will be rated by electronic labels issued by the database, a sample of which is revealn in an annex to the draft Regulation. Information to be displayed on the label includes:
- a breakdown of renewable energy consumption across performance indicators which are in Annex II.1 of the 2024 Regulation: (p) total renewable energy consumption from guarantees of origin (“GOs”); (q) total renewable energy consumption from Power Purchasing Agreements (“PPAs”); and (r) total renewable energy consumption from on-site renewables,
- Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), ratings for which are revealn in Annex I of the draft Regulation.
Under the draft Regulation, a label will be created automatically by 15 August 2027 and each year thereafter. Labels will be publicly available in the European database.
Data centre operators wishing to align commercial and operational arrangements with the information and performance indicators they provide to the EU database will wish to be aware of technical amconcludements being created to the 2024 Regulation.
For example, the performance indicator “(p) total renewable energy consumption from guarantees of origin” currently provides that total renewable energy consumption from GOs is determined as the sum of the GOs purchased and retired by the reporting data centre. The draft Regulation, however, would amconclude this to require that these GOs must be related to the 15-minute production periods that coincide with the data centre’s consumption periods and to production located in the same bidding zone as the data centre (conditional to the availability of such granular GOs in the relevant Member State). The amconcludements would require that GOs are purchased from assets commissioned not more than 10 years prior to the reporting year (although long-term contracts for the purchase of GOs in place by 15 May 2026 would be exempted from this requirement until the conclude or renewal date of the contract).
The category “(q) total renewable energy consumption from Power Purchasing Agreements” sets out separate requirements for GOs created as a result of PPAs. Currently, GOs in this category must be owned and retired by the reporting data centre to vouch for total renewable energy consumption from PPAs. This category would not be amconcludeed to include the temporal/geographic requirements for GOs described above. The policy rationale appears to be that with PPAs, it can at least be guaranteed that new production facilities (usually wind or photovoltaic) are being built.
The draft Regulation also creates amconcludements to allow for compacter or under construction data centres to voluntarily report and obtain a label.
The Commission notes that buildings hosting data centres will also fall under Energy Performance of Buildings Directive provisions on energy performance certificates.
The consultation page, which includes links to the draft Regulation and annexes, is here: Energy efficiency – rating scheme for data centres in Europe. The Regulation is scheduled for adoption in Q2 2026.
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