The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy has commissioned a study to support the development of a regulation establishing minimum performance standards for data centres in Europe.

Dovetailing with existing EU reporting requirements and with the planned introduction of a rating scheme, the standards will contribute to improved data centre performance and to the EU’s climate objectives. In practice, this means strengthening incentives for data centres to improve energy efficiency and sustainability. It also means enhancing transparency and comparability by building on the reporting and rating framework under the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) so that performance standards can be defined and consistently enforced across EU countries in line with requirements that are technically feasible, economically proportionate, and administratively workable without duplicating existing EU and national measures.

The study is already underway, having started in January 2026, and is building on the first 2 reporting cycles under the EED reporting scheme, as well as on previous studies, stakeholder consultations, and related datasets. It combines quantitative analysis of reported performance and sustainability indicators with targeted desk research and a review of relevant technical and policy evidence. The analysis is to be complemented by structured consultation with EU countries and stakeholders through surveys, interviews, and thematic workshops.

The analysis will continue for approximately 24 months.

Data centres are responsible for about 1.5%, or 415 Terawatt-Hours (TWh), of the world’s total yearly electricity consumption. IEA projections indicate that their consumption is set to more than double towards 945 TWh by 2030, primarily due to the substantial growth of energy-intensive accelerated computing, which is used mainly for AI purposes.

The EU aims to triple its data centre capacity by 2035.