EU proposes A-to-G energy labelling of data centres above 500 kW from 2027
The Commission presented a delegated regulation on 21 September 2026 that will generate electronic energy labels for data centres above 500 kW automatically — with no requirement to disclose total electricity consumption and no caps on power or water use. The scheme rests on a reporting system that, according to an anonymous Commission official, only around half of operators comply with today.
What is new
The European Commission on Monday 21 September 2026 presented a delegated regulation introducing automatically generated A-to-G labels for the energy and water consumption of data centres in Europe, as part of a Data Centre Energy Efficiency Package launched the same day (AFP via Yahoo News; Unite.AI).
According to AFP, the aim is to pre-empt possible public discontent as the EU pushes to expand its computing capacity. The initiative is part of a broader political framework: the Commission wants to triple the EU's data centre capacity, and the package is meant to show that this growth is not happening without oversight.
Who it covers
The scheme covers data centres above 500 kW. Smaller facilities below the threshold may take part voluntarily, and defence and civil-protection facilities are exempt (Unite.AI).
How the labelling works
The labels are not generated by the operators themselves. Instead, the European database for data centres — established by a Commission regulation in 2024 — calculates an electronic label automatically from the reporting data each centre has submitted, based on key figures and performance indicators. The first label is to be generated by 15 August 2027, and annually thereafter, according to Unite.AI. AFP states more vaguely that the first labels are "expected in 2027", and Engadget writes that they will come "next year" — the precise date should be verified against the regulation itself, which is not available in the source material.
The grading is built on two standard indicators:
- PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness, the ratio of total electricity consumption to IT electricity consumption): A requires a PUE of 1.15 or lower; G is given above 1.9.
- WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness, litres of water per kilowatt-hour of IT consumption): A at 0.1 or lower; G above 1.0.
The labels are published in an EU database that is open to the public (AFP).
The legal basis is a delegated regulation supplementing the recast Energy Efficiency Directive and amending the 2024 regulation that established the database. The regulation has not yet been finally adopted: Parliament and the Council have a two-month scrutiny period from 21 September, and the entry-into-force mechanisms are not fully confirmed in the available reporting (Unite.AI).
Why now
The backdrop is the electricity and water consumption of rapidly growing computing capacity. Data centres in Europe used around 68 TWh of electricity in 2024, and the Commission expects the figure to nearly double to 114 TWh by 2030, according to figures cited by Cryptopolitan. That would mean more than 3% of the EU's total electricity consumption, estimates the International Energy Agency (IEA). Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen stated, according to POLITICO as reported by Cryptopolitan, that data centres already account for roughly 2.5% of the EU's electricity consumption — but these statements cannot be directly confirmed from the secondary sources.
"Tripling our data centre capacity cannot mean tripling the pressure on our grids, our water and our energy bills", said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for a Clean Transition at the Commission, according to AFP.
What else the package contains
The labelling scheme is one part of a larger package. The same day, the Commission presented a report to the European Parliament and the Council assessing data the sector itself has reported, as well as a call for evidence and a public consultation on minimum performance requirements for data centres in Europe (Unite.AI).
If introduced, the minimum requirements would mean the scheme goes beyond pure transparency requirements. The Commission confirmed to AFP that it is "also looking at setting minimum performance requirements for data centres" (AFP).
What the scheme does not do
The labels are purely a transparency tool. The proposal does not require data centres to disclose their total electricity consumption, and it sets no caps on how much electricity or water the facilities may use (Engadget/Reuters).
This is a significant limitation: an A rating on PUE says something about the efficiency of cooling and power distribution, but nothing about how much electricity the facility draws overall — a highly efficient but enormously large data centre can thus receive a good label. There is likewise no limit on water consumption, which has been a contentious local issue in several places in the EU.
The underlying reporting is weakly enforced
The labels are only as good as the reporting they rest on. Mandatory reporting has been in force since 2023, but an anonymous Commission official tells Euronews that only about one third of centres reported in the first year, and that the share is now approaching 50%. Enforcement is largely left to the member states. This information comes via an aggregation source (IJR) and is not verified against other sources.
Criticism has also been directed at the scheme's enforceability. Bram Vranken of the Corporate Europe Observatory told Euronews that a confidentiality exception originally linked to Microsoft has been retained, albeit reformulated, and called it highly problematic because much of the information in the labels will be impossible to verify (IJR/Euronews). This too is based on a secondary source and cannot be confirmed directly.
What happens next
Parliament and the Council have two months to scrutinise the delegated regulation, and the consultation on minimum requirements is already open. In principle, the labels are to be generated automatically by 15 August 2027 for every operator that has submitted information and key indicators — but given the reported compliance rate of around 50%, it is an open question how many centres will actually receive a label in the first round. It also remains unanswered whether minimum performance requirements will actually be introduced, or whether the scheme will remain a transparency tool.
The Commission sees another potential: if around half of the waste heat from European data centres could be reused, the Commission's own estimate suggests it would provide enough heat for 4 million households (Cryptopolitan). The labels contain no requirement for such reuse — they only measure, and publish.