Germany Loosens Its Data Centre Efficiency Law Days Before the Strictest Rule Bites

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.

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. 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 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.

The pressure came from an industry growing fast in a country with high power prices. 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. 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. For operators choosing between Frankfurt and other European hubs, the change removes one of the most demanding national standards on the continent.