What EU regulation means for your data centre

The European Union's first formal assessment of data centre energy performance found that just 1.8% of the heat generated by EU data centres was reused in the first reporting round, covering 2023 data reported in 2024 (European Commission, COM(2026) 500). The gap between operators who recover their waste heat and those who don't is starting to close, not because operators are choosing to, but because legislation is forcing the issue.

What is already mandatory

Under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED 2023/1791) and Delegated Regulation 2024/1364, data centres above 500 kW IT load are required to report their ERF annually. Data centres above 1 MW must assess the feasibility of waste heat recovery.

What is coming

Minimum Performance Standards (MPS), including mandatory ERF thresholds, are under active development at EU level and expected to take effect within the next few years.

Germany has gone further

Germany's Energieeffizienzgesetz (EnEfG) already requires data centres to make waste heat available and to register on the national waste heat platform (Abwärmeplattform), with binding PUE and ERF targets.

The practical takeaway

The question is not whether your data centre will need to address waste heat, it's whether you'll be ready when it does. A pre-feasibility screening takes 2–4 weeks and requires no commitment.