Regulation
The Energy Efficiency Act, explained
Germany regulates data centres harder than any other country in Europe. The Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) decides how a data centre must be cooled, what electricity it may buy, and where its heat has to go. This is the short version, with the dates that matter.
PUE caps, waste-heat quotas and their deadlines – what German law actually requires of a data centre, and from when.
Who the law applies to
The data centre obligations start at 300 kW of installed IT load – a threshold a single modern rack row can cross. In practice every commercial site in Germany is covered. Our first building connects 3,000 kW: ten times the threshold, so nothing on this page is optional for us.
The efficiency cap
PUE – power usage effectiveness – is total electricity drawn divided by electricity that reaches the machines; a perfect building would score 1.0. Data centres commissioned from 1 July 2026 must reach an annual average of 1.2 or better. For comparison, the German installed base averages about 1.55 (Bitkom): the law does not codify current practice, it bans it.
The waste-heat quotas
The same act sets a reuse quota by commissioning date: data centres going into operation from July 2026 must reuse 10 percent of their heat, from July 2027 15 percent, from July 2028 20 percent. The quota is structural – it cannot be met by buying certificates, only by a pipe that leads somewhere useful.
The electricity rule
From 2024 data centres must cover half their consumption with unsubsidised renewable electricity; from 1 January 2027, all of it. An amendment now in the legislative process proposes moving the 100 percent date to 2030 – until it passes, 2027 is the law. Combined with the PUE cap, the logic is consistent: draw less, draw clean, and give the heat back.
What this does to design
A building meets these numbers by architecture, not by procurement. Cooling has to happen close to the rack, free cooling needs somewhere at grade to reject to, and the heat quota needs a heating network within reach – which is why site selection begins at the grid connection and the district heating map, not at the floor plan.
