Summary
- New data centres would have four years rather than two to meet minimum efficiency requirements.
- The requirement for 100% renewable electricity would move from 2027 to 1 January 2030.
- Waste heat use would be required only where a suitable heat network is available nearby.
Germany is considering changes that would give new data centres twice as long to meet minimum efficiency requirements, delay the deadline for 100% renewable electricity and relax waste heat rules where suitable heat networks are unavailable.
The Bundestag’s Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy examined the government’s proposed amendments to the Energy Efficiency Act at a public hearing on 5 October.
Under the bill, the period available to new data centres to comply with minimum efficiency requirements would increase from two years to four. The date from which their electricity must be covered entirely by renewable sources would move from 2027 to 1 January 2030.
The statutory treatment of waste heat would also change. Data centres would only have to use recovered heat where an appropriate heat network is available nearby, replacing a requirement that puts more responsibility for achieving reuse on the facility itself.
Heat reuse depends on infrastructure outside the site
A data centre can make heat available without having a viable customer for it. Moving recovered heat into homes, commercial property or industry requires pipework, pumps, heat exchangers, suitable temperatures and a local demand profile capable of accepting the output.
Where that network has not been built, complying with a heat reuse requirement can require infrastructure well beyond the data centre boundary. The proposed legislation would recognise that dependency by linking the obligation to the presence of a suitable network.
The change would affect decisions made during mechanical design. A facility intended to supply a district heat network may operate cooling water at different temperatures, incorporate additional heat exchangers and allocate space for equipment that would not be required where heat is rejected directly to the atmosphere.
The renewable electricity amendment changes a different part of the operating model. Moving the 100% requirement to 2030 would give operators three additional years before the statutory threshold takes effect, although electricity price, grid carbon intensity and customer procurement requirements can still drive renewable contracting independently of the law.
Germany is making the changes while completing its implementation of the revised EU Energy Efficiency Directive. The European framework requires the EU to reduce final energy consumption by at least 11.7% by 2030 compared with the 2020 projection and establishes energy efficiency first as a policy principle.
The proposed German amendments are intended to reduce national requirements that go beyond the European minimum. That approach has become part of a wider argument over whether data centre development should be encouraged through simpler rules or subjected to stronger conditions because of its electricity demand.
The Greens have proposed preferential grid connections for particularly efficient and sustainable data centres. Such a system would make environmental performance part of the allocation of scarce electrical capacity rather than treating grid access and facility efficiency as separate processes.
The Left has taken a more restrictive position and called for a moratorium on data centre approvals until a robust assessment of demand and available capacity has been completed.
Neither proposal is part of the government bill itself, but both illustrate the pressure created by large new electrical loads. Data centre efficiency determines how much of an incoming connection reaches IT equipment rather than cooling and supporting plant, while heat recovery determines whether part of the rejected energy can be used elsewhere.
The government’s bill would leave those engineering questions in place while changing the statutory thresholds and timetable. Developers planning German capacity therefore need to distinguish between requirements in force today and amendments that remain subject to the parliamentary process.
