What happened
On 21 September 2026 the European Commission proposed a delegated regulation under the recast Energy Efficiency Directive establishing a common rating scheme for the sustainability of data centres in the EU (A–G labels for PUE and WUE, energy-source/grid-function disclosures, waste-heat reuse). It would apply to all EU data centres with installed IT power demand of 500 kW or above, with annual labels generated automatically from 15 August 2027, amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364.
Why it matters
AI-driven data centre expansion is the core driver of surging EU data centre energy and water use. The mandatory labelling imposes disclosure/ratings obligations on all large AI training/inference facilities in the EU and feeds the Commission's AI-infrastructure energy roadmap.
Action needed
EU data centre operators at/above the 500 kW threshold should track the delegated regulation's adoption and prepare to report the KPI data that will drive automatic label generation from August 2027.