Article 12 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2023/1791

Article 12 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2023/1791 requires the operator of every data center with at least 500 kW of IT power to report, every year and to a European database, its consumption and its performance indicators. The directive dates from September 13, 2023, and European operators filed their first report on September 15, 2024. The threshold is read on installed IT power demand. What has to be submitted is the list set by Annex VII: floor area, installed power, energy consumed, share of renewable electricity, water withdrawn, waste heat reused. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 set the indicators and the calculation method, and pushed back the first deadline, which the directive had set for May 15, 2024; the following ones fall on May 15. The database only makes aggregates by member state public, and that is the limit for anyone hoping to use it as an exposure map. But the operator now holds a standardized record of its IT power, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness), produced under a legal obligation and on the record. A property or business interruption underwriter asking for a site's power has no reason left to get a sales estimate rounded to the megawatt. The article also sets up what comes next: the Commission was to assess in 2025 whether minimum performance standards are warranted, which would turn an inefficient site into an asset exposed to a forced upgrade, with live-site works and outage risk. Article 26 of the same directive adds, above 1 MW of rated input, an obligation to reuse waste heat, unless it is shown to be technically or economically unfeasible.