Data centres
Paolo Bertoldi, senior expert, European Commission Joint Research Centre.
Green agenda
The man behind the Data Centres Energy Efficiency CoC is Paolo Bertoldi. An expert in energy efficiency for the past 30 years, the senior expert at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) explains that the CoC was created in partnership with data centre operators and equipment suppliers, alongside academics and experts from member states. Perhaps unsurprisingly for such a collaborative scheme, meanwhile, the CoC is voluntary, with data centres completely free to join the initiative. “Once they have joined it,” Bertoldi explains, “the operators have to follow some rules, such as submitting an initial action plan on how to improve energy efficiency and reporting on some key operation parameters of their data centre and energy consumption.” Participating data centres, Bertoldi adds, would then need to report their energy consumption annually.
40- 45TWh
The rate of energy consumed by data centres.
1.4- 1.6%
20
The percentage of total EU electricity consumption taken up by data centres. European Commission
At the core of the CoC policy is the Best Practices document, which outlines all possible means to improve energy efficiency for data centres – including renovating existing spaces or designing new ones. The document is also prepared and updated by stakeholders each year, keeping up with new technological developments. “It covers every aspect related to energy consumption in data centres, from hardware to software, from energy management to cooling etc,” Bertoldi says. The importance of the Best Practices document here is obvious, with data centre operators outside the EU, or not participating in the CoC, using it as a key document for energy efficiency. “Over time, the interest for the CoC has increased,” Bertoldi notes. “There are now about 500 data centres, which have received participant status in the CoC – they have reported on their energy consumption and are implementing best practices.” It is no surprise, then, that, given the importance and longevity of the CoC, it is considered for new legislation such as the famous (or infamous) Taxonomy regulation. Itself mostly voluntary, and concerning undertakings labelled green when seeking
investment, section 8.1 of the EU Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act tackles the economic activity of data processing, hosting and related activities. The screening criteria for determining economic activities are classified by making a significant contribution to climate change mitigation – and include compliance with the Best Practices document. This voluntary focus can cause issues. “It is important to note that the CoC is a useful collection of Best Practices, but lacks a framework for third-party control,” Bertoldi says. After the stakeholders raised this as a problem, the European Commission assigned the Testing Inspection and Certification Council (TIC Council) to prepare an assessment framework for data centres to fill this gap. The TIC Council then formed a drafting group of technical experts after calls from the public. At the same time, the JRC also created a steering group, to build upon the CoC Best Practices Committee. The Assessment Framework, for its part, was published earlier this year, in February 2023, with some operators already carrying out audits of their data centres. Altogether, the framework will help determine if data centres are meeting the requirements of the European Taxonomy. One important development, meanwhile, is the adoption of the recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive (the so-called EED recast), which came into force in September 2023. The EED was originally adopted in 2012 to help member states improve energy efficiency by 20%, and placed an upper limit on total EU energy consumption to help meet this. The EED was revised in 2018 to meet EU objectives of 32.5% energy efficiency improvements by 2030, while also upping annual energy savings obligations (+0.08%). “The EED recast introduces a specific article on data centres, Article 12,” explains Bertoldi. “This article foresees an obligation to report on the energy performance of data centres by 15 May 2024 and every year thereafter.” Member states, for their part, will require data centre owners and operators with ICT power demand of at least 500kW to make
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