Sustainability
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Pennsylvania tightens rules for 25MW data centres
Pennsylvania has imposed new permitting, disclosure, local-consent, and annual reporting requirements on data centres above 25MW as large AI loads reshape the state’s electricity system.
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euNetworks links financing to lower-carbon builds
euNetworks has added network-construction and GRESB performance targets to its €1.26bn sustainability-linked financing as physical expansion becomes the largest source of its emissions.
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Can Europe compare data centres fairly?
Europe is preparing a common data centre efficiency rating system using energy and water metrics already collected from operators. Comparing facilities operating under different climates, cooling systems, utilisation levels, and water conditions remains considerably harder.
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Data centre heat trial targets water recovery
AirJoule Technologies and Europe’s Net Zero Innovation Hub plan to test a system designed to turn low-grade data centre waste heat into usable water.
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Schwarz links Lübbenau data centre to heat network
Schwarz Digits will feed waste heat from its 200MW Lübbenau data centre into the local district-heating network from 2028.
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US AI pipeline could add 101.5Mt CO₂
Sixty planned US data centres from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta could be associated with 101.5m tonnes of annual CO₂ on the current generation mix, highlighting the widening gap between compute growth and electricity-sector decarbonisation.
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NSW links faster approvals to infrastructure rules
New South Wales will offer 75-day assessments to qualifying data centre projects that meet energy, water, environmental, community, and skills requirements, while moving to recover network and water infrastructure costs from operators.
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Amsterdam Equinix plan faces water scrutiny
A four-tower Equinix development in Amsterdam-Zuidoost could use 1.1bn litres of drinking water annually at full build-out, placing its proposed cooling system above a voluntary Dutch industry water-efficiency benchmark.
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Drought puts data centre water connections under strain
Water constraints are reaching proposed data centre developments in southern England as drought forces utilities to examine large new connection requests against an already stressed supply system.
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Heatwave turns cooling into a grid load
Extreme heat can lift data centre cooling demand by 20–30%, adding electrical load as drought, high temperatures, and constrained generation place pressure on power systems across Europe.