The EU will introduce minimum energy efficiency standards for data centres to respond to the surge in energy consumption under the AI wave

According to information from IT House 4 June, according to Reuters, the EU announced on Wednesday, local time, that it would introduce minimum energy efficiency standards for data centres, given the concerns raised by the rapid rise in power consumption in data centres.

The EU data centre is expected to more than double its installed capacity in the coming years, from 12 Giva last year to 28 Giva in 2030, when the data centre’s share of total electricity consumption in the EU will exceed its current level of 2.5%.

The European Commission indicated that minimum energy efficiency standards would be developed for new and stock data centres and that the associated needs assessment would need to be completed by 2027.

According to IT House, the data centre is the bottom support for the various digital services and an important driver of the surge in the size of the computing and artificial intelligence industries. But the high energy consumption of data centres may be a drag on the European clean energy transformation process: fossil energy plants are forced to serve longer or even to start new production in order to match electricity demand; and the cost of electricity for society as a whole rises under grid pressure.

According to the European Commission: “The sector will continue to experience high electricity consumption, and if it is not addressed at the EU level now, the challenges will continue to deteriorate in the future and the difficulties of governance will increase significantly.”

According to the International Energy Agency, 20 per cent of the new electricity demand in developed economies will come from data centres by 2030.

The EU is also developing sustainability labels for data centres, certifying that performance indicators cover water consumption, clean energy supply ratio, etc., and that large data centres are required to make data on indicators publicly available. This proposal, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed, and EU officials have revealed that the European Commission is still negotiating a number of by-laws that include rules for evaluating nuclear power supply data centres.

These initiatives are part of the EU Science and Technology Support package, which aims to build indigenous cloud computing and artificial intelligence industries and reduce reliance on large technology enterprises. The package also includes streamlining the approval process for new energy projects with the help of generating artificial intelligence and allocating specific funds to develop artificial intelligence control tools for the European grid.

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