Germany wrote some of the world's toughest efficiency rules for data centres into law in 2023. On 24 June 2026, a week before the strictest of them was due to apply, the federal cabinet approved an amendment that loosens them.
The revision of the Energy Efficiency Act, known as the EnEfG, raises the maximum power usage effectiveness for new data centres from 1.2 to 1.3 and relaxes the obligation to reuse waste heat. The government's stated aim, according to an April analysis of the draft by law firm Taylor Wessing, is to respond to the growing weight of energy-intensive infrastructure, particularly data centres, in overall energy use and to cut high implementation costs for businesses.
What changes
Power usage effectiveness, or PUE, measures how much of a data centre's electricity goes to computing rather than cooling and other overheads. A PUE of 1.2 means 20% extra on top of the IT load. Under the original law, new data centres commissioned from 1 July 2026 had to reach 1.2. The draft raises that to 1.3.
Existing sites also get more room. Their limit from 1 July 2027 becomes 1.6 instead of 1.5, and from 1 July 2030 it becomes 1.4 instead of 1.3, Taylor Wessing said.
The waste heat rules change more. The draft adds an exemption from the duty to reuse waste heat if there is no technically and economically feasible connection to an existing or planned heating network within five kilometres. It clarifies that simply offering waste heat to a heat network operator is enough, and that operators no longer have to maintain the equipment needed to supply it; providing a vacant plot of land suffices. A general obligation to avoid waste heat is replaced by a duty to carry out a cost-benefit analysis when planning or significantly modernising a data centre.
Why Berlin moved
The pressure came from an industry growing fast in a country with high power prices. The digital association Bitkom estimates that German data centres used 21.3 billion kWh of electricity in 2025, up from 20 billion in 2024 and 12 billion in 2015, with about two thirds going to IT equipment. The same report put investment in German data centres at 12 billion euros in 2025, driven by artificial intelligence. In a November 2025 report, it called Germany's energy prices, which it said are very high by European standards, a substantial competitive disadvantage. It also said planning and permitting for new data centres in Germany take much longer than the EU average and about six months longer than the law intends.
A study for the economy ministry published in January 2025 projected that German data centres will need 31 TWh in 2030 and could reach almost 80 TWh by 2045 if growth continues, about 6% of expected gross power use and an increase of almost 400% on 2024. In 2024 data centres and smaller IT installations used about 20 TWh, roughly 4% of German gross consumption. The same study estimated that without the EnEfG, consumption in 2030 would be 2.5 TWh higher, and that if new sites met the law's requirements, about 1 TWh of data centre heat could be used by end customers in 2030. It expected emissions linked to data centre power use to fall from about 6.5 million tonnes of CO2 in 2024 to about 4.5 million tonnes in 2030 as the German power mix changes, even as consumption rises.
That last figure shows what Germany is trading. Looser PUE limits and softer heat rules make sites cheaper to build and run, but they reduce the energy savings and heat supply the original law was designed to deliver.
Industry says it is not enough
Bitkom welcomed the direction but not the details. Its chief executive, Bernhard Rohleder, said the amendment at least partly corrects requirements that were out of touch with practice and moves closer to European rules, but that the association had wanted far more ambition. He argued that the efficiency provisions had been made worse during negotiations between ministries, and that PUE on its own is too narrow a measure because utilisation, availability requirements and the cooling concept also matter.
On heat, Rohleder said operators are ready to hand over waste heat at no cost, but that a one-sided obligation does not work without suitable buyers and viable business models. The option of an individual cost-benefit analysis, he said, points in the right direction.
The wider complaint is about everything outside the law. Rohleder said Germany needs sufficient grid connections, competitive power prices and faster planning and approval, warning that investment will move abroad if conditions elsewhere are better and that the targets of the national data centre strategy would then be out of reach.
The European backdrop
The amendment brings Germany closer to the EU framework. In its November 2025 report, Bitkom called for German special rules under the EnEfG, including those on PUE and the share of reused energy, to be harmonised with European requirements. It argued that heat reuse could instead be strengthened through tax incentives for heat buyers, better municipal heat planning and the expansion of modern heat networks, putting more of the burden on the demand side of the heat market rather than on data centre operators.
For operators choosing between Frankfurt and other European hubs, the change removes one of the most demanding national standards on the continent. It does not touch the larger constraints of grid access and electricity cost.
Grid connections are a separate bottleneck. Bitkom's report called for a needs-based and coordinated allocation of grid connections alongside lower electricity costs, arguing that a successful data centre location requires a stable, sustainable power supply at competitive prices.
What to watch
The amendment now goes to the Bundestag. The final PUE limits and the scope of the five-kilometre waste heat exemption could still change in parliament. The other test is investment. If operators respond to looser rules by committing to new German capacity, the government will claim the trade was worth it. If grid and price constraints keep projects away, the amendment will have given up efficiency gains without winning the investment it was meant to attract.