AlgorithmWatch study: weaker German data center efficiency rules would cost billions

A study published Oct. 2 by AlgorithmWatch, the Umweltinstitut München and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research projects that weakening the efficiency limit for new data centers under Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG), now being revised in the Bundestag, would require extra energy equal to four gas power plants, or seven if the benchmark switched from measured to design-stage efficiency values. The current draft does not lower those limits, though such changes are under political discussion; AlgorithmWatch puts the avoidable electricity cost through 2045 at €3.75 billion even at 5 cents per kWh, and says operators largely pass energy costs on to customers. AlgorithmWatch’s Julian Bothe was set to present the findings at the Bundestag economic affairs committee’s Oct. 5 hearing on the bill, which the group says also postpones a renewable-energy requirement for data centers and adds trade-secret exemptions to rules requiring operators to publish per-site energy figures.