Europe’s new Energy Efficiency Directive goes into effect next May, but the vast majority of data center operators aren’t able to collect the capacity and utilization statistics that regulators want.
Under the directive, owners and operators of data centers with 500 kilowatts or more of installed IT capacity will need to report their 2023 energy performance by May 15, 2024. That includes statistics about installed power, incoming and outgoing data traffic, total data stored and processed, energy consumption, power usage, temperature set points, waste heat utilization, and use of renewable energy.
According to Jay Dietrich, research director of sustainability at the Uptime Institute, only 19% of data centers in Europe collect server utilization statistics and only 29% even have a data management system capable of collecting and managing the information required by the directive. Overall, only 30% are ready for the directive, he says. Another 15% can be ready in three to six months, while 29% can be ready in one year – and 27% won’t be ready for two years or longer.
Collecting the data is particularly challenging in multi-tenant environments, where colocation providers will have to depend on their tenants to provide much of this information. “In the first year or two, that’s going to be a problem,” says Dietrich.
