eco Alliance: Energy Efficiency Act Amendment Bill Must Finally Create Legal Certainty and Feasibility for Data Centre Operators

• Alliance Spokesperson Béla Waldhauser calls for harmonisation of national and European Regulations

• Reporting obligations and thresholds must be designed to be practically feasible for operators of digital infrastructures

Today, Wednesday, the Committee for Climate Protection and Energy is holding a public hearing on the German Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) Amendment Bill. The currently discussed EnEfG Amendment Bill offers the possibility to resolve discrepancies between German regulations and the underlying EU guidelines. Béla Waldhauser, Spokesperson of the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded under the umbrella of eco - Association of the Internet Industry, comments:

"For the future of the digital ecosystem in Germany, what is essential is that the German federal government now makes the necessary improvements to the EnEfG in the parliamentary process in order to finally harmonise national and European requirements and create legal certainty for data centre operators." Waldhauser further states that the priority should be the handling of the publication of performance data. Currently, the national obligation to publish performance data directly contradicts the confidentiality of the transferred performance indicators in accordance with Article 5(5) of the EED Delegated Act, which state that this information is considered confidential. "National special paths in reporting obligations create legal uncertainty in the industry, so the Amendment Bill should take up the requirements of the EU Regulation," says Béla Waldhauser.

Another source of uncertainty currently exists, particularly for colocation operators regarding the collection of IT performance data. They do not have the necessary access to the IT equipment to collect or estimate this data themselves, since they only provide the infrastructure, but not the servers, to the renting companies. At the same time, the customers themselves are not obligated to provide information to the operator. Here too, the government must clarify in what context and by whom performance data should be collected and reported.

Additionally, the German federal government should also adjust the definition of insignificant waste heat potential and the associated exceptions to the reporting requirements of the waste heat platform. In addition to de minimis thresholds for the amount of waste heat, the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany is also calling for the introduction of minimum thresholds for temperature and the simultaneity of demand and availability.

Besides the adjustments for greater legal certainty, the eco Alliance calls for further adjustments that will ensure the practical feasibility of the efficiency measures:

"The calculation of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) should definitely take into account the capacity utilisation of data centres, since a significant proportion of the energy is used for cooling, power distribution and other supporting systems, and not just for the actual computing task. In particular, newer and actually efficient data centres are therefore affected by a distorted PUE value as long as they are not fully utilised. Moreover, the German federal government must make the obligation to utilise waste heat in a feasible manner and rely on a cost-benefit analysis instead of fixed thresholds. And the government must also harmonise the inconsistent thresholds at the EU and federal level so that operators of digital infrastructures remain capable of acting and are not hindered in their actual digitalisation efforts. Data centre operators need legal certainty and practically feasible regulations in order to ensure a flawless supply and a steady expansion of the digital ecosystem," says Waldhauser.

eco's German-language position paper on the EnEfG Amendment Bill can be found here.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.