Are EU data center MPS values creating chaos?

The EU Commission and their technical consultants have proposed minimum performance standard (MPS) values for PUE, water usage effectiveness (WUE) and renewable energy factor (REF) to drive improvements in data center energy and sustainability performance. The proposed values, however, are based on an analysis of an unrepresentative sample of the current EU data center population. The limited nature of the data set risks creating data center space shortages as existing data centers will need to be upgraded or replaced. The number and square footage of affected facilities risk injecting chaos into the data center market as the facilities are taken offline to meet the 2030 thresholds.

At a minimum, the Commission should implement the PUE and WUE thresholds in two steps: a less stringent threshold in 2030 and the proposed final threshold implemented in 2034. A tiered implementation will drive improvement in performance while reducing the stress on the market. The final timeline should be based on a detailed analysis of the quantity of space that will have to be replaced or upgraded in conjunction with the already ambitious data center growth plans to support AI implementation.