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German govt agrees to ease energy efficiency requirements for data centres

The German coalition government has adopted a draft law reform to ease requirements on businesses to become more energy efficient, including data centres. Germany’s industry welcomed the proposed changes as a step in the right direction of cutting bureaucracy, but other stakeholders are more critical about what they see as a weakening of energy efficiency rules needed to achieve climate neutrality.The draft law – which still needs to be formally adopted by parliament and the states’ council – consists of adaptations to existing energy efficiency requirements for businesses and the public sector. Germany is legally required to improve its energy efficiency, both by the EU Energy Efficiency Directive and its own national legislation. The existing obligation for businesses to use waste heat will be scrapped. New data centres would get more time to adhere to efficiency provisions, and the deadline by which data centre operators must meet 100 percent of electricity consumption with renewable energy sources is being extended by three years to 1 January 2030, said the economy ministry. Germany has made less progress on its targets to reduce energy demand than on its renewables targets. Increasing energy efficiency is generally seen as a main pillar of the energy transition and essential to reaching climate neutrality by 2045. Saving energy on a large scale – by insulating buildings, changing behaviour and introducing many new and often expensive technologies in different sectors – requires everyone’s participation, and has proven a hard sell so far. Industry group DIHK welcomed the easing of existing regulations, and said this constituted a “considerable relief” for affected businesses. However, the group also said the proposed draft does not go far enough in reducing efficiency regulations’ burden. “The draft still contains excessive requirements, growth-inhibiting provisions and regulations that are out of touch with reality,” said DIHK president Peter Adrian. “These should be further reduced as the process continues.” The industry group said it would have been better not to enshrine any energy efficiency targets in law, as this places a “considerable strain” on economic development.In contrast, the Federal Association for Sustainable Economy said the law proposal is a “step backwards” when it comes to energy efficiency. The association emphasised the importance of more binding efficiency requirements for both energy security and competitiveness. “The draft bill adopted by the cabinet today to implement the [EU] Energy Efficiency Directive shows once again that the [government] coalition is failing to reconcile climate protection with competition,” said Katharina Reuter, the association’s managing director. “Although the government pays lip service to ‘putting energy efficiency first’, it then settles for the absolute minimum required by European regulations.”Germany’s wind energy association (BWE) criticised the “watering down” of efficiency targets for data centres, especially related to fewer requirements to use renewable energy. “Anyone who now relaxes the requirements for the use of renewable energy will not solve the energy challenges posed by digitalisation,” said BWE president Bärbel Heidebroek. “The federal government risks a serious misstep that will have to be corrected later. The draft bill is therefore a clear step backwards.”The German Business Initiative for Energy Efficiency (DENEFF) stated that by softening efficiency regulations the coalition is “manoeuvring itself even further into dependence on energy imports and weakening the domestic economy”.“Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective lever for greater energy security, lower energy import and system costs, and thus for greater competitiveness,” said Christian Noll, managing director of DENEFF.

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