Big Tech proposes European Commission adjust water efficiency rules to allow data centres located where water is scarce to be viable
A collaboration of Big Tech and data centre operators has submitted a paper to the European Commission detailing the issues it has with the Commission’s policies on the restriction of water and energy requirements for data centres. Data cen
A collaboration of Big Tech and data centre operators has submitted a paper to the European Commission detailing the issues it has with the Commission’s policies on the restriction of water and energy requirements for data centres.
Data centres require enormous amounts of energy and water to operate. So Big Tech and data centre operators are proposing that the Commission adjust their policies to include a statistical trick that will allow data centres to operate in locations where water is scarce.
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EU Minimum Performance Standards for Data Centres
The European Union (“EU”) has introduced minimum performance standards for data centres as part of its broader “sustainability” and energy efficiency initiatives. These standards are primarily outlined in the Energy Efficiency Directive (“EED”) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD”), which require data centres to report specific key performance indicators or metrics and adhere to established energy efficiency frameworks, or minimum performance standards (“MPS”).
“The introduction of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will impact data centre owners and operators across the [European] Union … These directives mandate a shift towards enhanced energy efficiency,” Jaymie Scotto & Associates (“JSA”) explained.
JSA highlighted that one of the impacts on data centre owners and operators is: “Operators must implement energy efficiency measures aimed at reducing overall energy consumption by 11.7% by 2023, focusing on waste heat utilisation, renewable energy integration, and optimising energy consumption.”
JSA concluded, “The EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive are pivotal for data centres in reducing energy consumption.”
Related: Commission adopts EU-wide scheme for rating sustainability of data centres, European Commission, 15 March 2024
Coalition of Data Centres Push Back
This month, the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact (“CNDCP”) published a paper highlighting its issues with the European Commission’s (“EC”) policies.
The paper, which has been submitted to the EC, states, “A source of major concern … is whether the proposed Minimum Performance Standards (MPS) would actually work. This is due to multiple shortcomings in the regulatory approach … The direction of travel is also contrary to the Commission’s pro-AI and competitiveness agendas, potentially undermining Europe’s digital transformation goals.”
The paper went on to explore each of the issues, including “lack of climate normalisation.” Which CNDP summarises as:
A critical oversight in the current MPS proposal is the inadequate treatment of climate normalisation for both PUE (power usage effectiveness) and WUE (water usage effectiveness) metrics. This approach fails to account for the significant impact that local climate conditions have on efficiency.
Minimum Performance Standards for Data Centres, Observations from Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, July 2025, pg. 5
The CNDCP is a voluntary initiative developed in co-operation with the EC and launched in January 2021 by industry bodies CISPE and EUDCA, aiming to make data centres in Europe “climate neutral” by 2030. It has become a “self-regulatory initiative” with its achievements recognised and reported to the European Union. The CNDCP has over 100 members or signatories, with 131 listed on its published list, including major companies like Google, IBM, Intel, Iron Mountain, Leaseweb and NTT.
The Register highlighted some of the key points in CNDCP’s paper:
The paper (PDF), submitted to the European Commission and its consultants tasked with defining MPS, claims that the current plans fall “short strategically and tactically,” and may actually hinder progress.
Wasting no time, the Pact makes sure to get the point across in its introduction that energy demand from air conditioning and cooling systems is rising faster than that from AI, but claims the sheer speed of data centre growth and the difficulty in obtaining robust data is “troubling policy makers and leading to unhelpful speculation.”
Its ire is centred on the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), which introduced mandatory reporting requirements on data centre power use, plus the option to develop a rating/labelling scheme for bit barn facilities and minimum performance standards.
Data centre lobby blows a fuse over EU efficiency proposals: Green rules risk short-circuiting AI ambitions, warns group including AWS, Microsoft and Google, The Register, 30 July 2025
Note: When reading The Register’s article quoted above, you will see the term “bit barn” used and perhaps, like us, you are left wondering what a “bit farm” is. It’s not entirely clear what a “bit barn” is. If you conduct an internet search, you will discover there is no definition or description of the term; it appears to be jargon used by Google, or perhaps The Register, for data centres (read more HERE).
“Climate Normalisation”
The climate cult, as with the entire UN agenda, is consistently making up terms that, apparently, only insiders understand. “Climate normalisation” is yet another example. So, what does “climate normalisation” mean? More importantly, what does CNDCP, which is attempting to influence polices that affect the lives of everyone living within the EU, mean by using the term?
The World Meteorological Organisation describes “climate normals” as the method of comparing current weather conditions or environmental impacts to a standard reference period, typically a 30-year period, to identify deviations and trends. MeteoSwiss follows suit. And Climate Lab Book discusses “normalisation” as a statistical method used in meteorology and environmental science to understand and analyse climate patterns and their changes over time.
Is this what CNDCP means? To answer this, we turn to the details provided in CNDCP’s paper.
“Failure to implement climate normalisation’ is detailed in Section 6 beginning on page 6 of the paper. The following is what it says (emphasis added):
6 Failure to implement climate normalisation
Data centre WUE [water usage effectiveness] and PUE [power usage effectiveness] performance is affected by external climatic conditions, expressed in terms of the number of cooling degree days (CDD) and the level of water scarcity attributable to a location. Data centres in warmer regions naturally require more cooling energy, resulting in higher PUE values compared to facilities in cooler climates, even when employing identical efficiency measures. Similarly, water consumption varies significantly based on local climate conditions. The WUE metric calculated by the Pact incorporates water scarcity. This is a material consideration. The use of non-potable water in a location with a plentiful supply should not necessarily be discouraged: the delicate balance between energy and water efficiency should be addressed on a site-by-site basis to ensure an optimal outcome in terms of sustainability performance. To ignore interrelations like this will lead to perverse outcomes.
The physics of network availability demand that data centres must exist in hot, dry locations as well as in cold, wet ones – low latency services in Seville can’t be delivered from data centres in Tromsø – so the proposed approach would unjustly penalise some operators while giving others an inherent advantage. Without proper climate normalisation integrated into the calculation methodology, MPSs could create an unfair playing field, effectively discriminating against facilities based solely on their geographic location. The complete omission of climate normalisation from the MPS proposal is particularly concerning given the significant impact of local conditions on operational efficiency.
To ensure fair evaluation of performance across different climate zones, weather normalisation must be integrated into the PUE and WUE requirements of any MPS (or indeed any adjacent EED-derived scheme). This would enable consistency regardless of location, therefore supporting the single market while maintaining meaningful efficiency standards. We therefore request clarification regarding the adjustments that will be made to the proposed minimum standards to accommodate factors, like climate and water availability, that are beyond the control of data centre operators.
Minimum Performance Standards for Data Centres, Observations from Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, July 2025, pg. 8 and 9
So, it appears that CNDCP uses the term “climate normalisation” to mean a statistical method that is applied to account for different climates so data centres find it easier to use as much water and energy as they require when located in hot arid locations. This is a statistical trick to get around the EC’s rules, hoping the public won’t notice the core problem: data centres should not be built where there are not sufficient water sources. People’s needs should come first; data centres should also not take precedence over nature or natural systems.
It is important to note that CNDCP is not advocating for the protection of energy or water supplies needed for local populations. Instead, the implication is that they propose to ensure energy and water-hungry data centres can operate in areas where these resources are scarce, with certain detriment to the people, wildlife and plants who occupy these lands.
Related:
- Case Study: Water-guzzling data centres, University of Oxford
- Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas, The Guardian, 9 April 2025
Why are they so focused on the resources needed to operate data centres to the detriment of all else?
A key aspect of the United Nations’ (“UN’s”) agenda is digital transformation using digital public infrastructure (“DPI”), which forms the backbone of the One World Government control grid. According to the Gates Foundation, DPI has three pillars: digital IDs, digital payment systems and data exchange systems. To make this control grid work, they need data centres, and lots of them, dotted throughout the world – even in locations where clean drinking water is limited or scarce.
In 2023, the UN held its first Water Conference in 46 years. On the Conference’s webpage, the UN leads with the remark, “Water is a dealmaker for the Sustainable Development Goals … But our progress on water-related goals and targets remains alarmingly off track, jeopardising the entire sustainable development agenda.”
Is it merely a coincidence that the UN proclaimed that water is jeopardising its entire agenda?
- Energy and water-hungry AI is bad for the environment
- WEF and UN join forces to initiate the next global crisis – water
Featured image: Google’s data centre in St. Ghislain, Belgium, uses water-side cooling so well that it does not need any additional cooling. Source: Baxtel
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