analysis
Data centers need a lot of energy. The Energy Efficiency Act is intended to encourage them to save or recycle. But with broad criteria and exceptions, the law is unlikely to have any effect.
Why waste energy when you can save it or use it for something else? Political goals that sound reasonable can take years to implement, even with announcements from above, as the issue of energy efficiency shows.
Around ten years ago, during the German EU Council Presidency, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel formulated the goal that the countries of the European Union should save more energy. But how the ARD political magazine Report Mainz reported at the time, the then Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler torpedoed the project in his own country. The Federal Ministry of Economics said at the time that more energy efficiency could also be achieved through truck tolls or vehicle taxes. A law-making process followed with a lot of wasted heat being wasted.
Two percent savings per year
However, this year – and after Germany has found its place behind countries like Romania when it comes to energy efficiency in a European comparison – the Bundestag passed the Energy Efficiency Act at the end of September. Today the topic in the Federal Council is which measures should be used to make better use of energy and thus save it in accordance with the requirements of an EU directive.
The intention: Two percent every year, in figures around 550 terawatt hours, should be saved by the public or corporate sector by 2030 – regardless of whether it is climate-neutral or fossil energy. Energy consumption should be reduced by more than a fifth compared to today and, as a result, Germany’s energy import dependence should be capped.
Criticism from the economy
The way to get there is controversial: the President of the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (ifo), Clemens Fuest, sees the law as a “growth killer”. The economy cannot grow because energy efficiency would then have to triple at the same time. For energy expert Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the law increases prosperity because it would reduce costs for the entire national economy, but above all for the economy.
The law requires the federal government, states and the most energy-intensive companies to introduce energy or environmental management systems. But even companies that consume an average of more than 2.5 gigawatt hours per year must, for example, draw up and publish plans for economic energy efficiency measures within three years.
The public and corporate sectors are not only guided by the law, but are also encouraged to work together: the law stipulates that potential heat suppliers and district heating companies should come into contact. A platform is planned for this: Who offers how much waste heat, where, and who could use it?
Data centers with huge power requirements
While politicians across several federal governments took their time to tighten their energy belts, some companies have long since set out on the path to greater energy efficiency: Ionos, based in Montabaur in Rhineland-Palatinate, is one example of several. The cloud and hosting provider operates 31 data centers. They need energy, one as much as several thousand households. More than three percent of German electricity consumption occurs in data centers; in times of increasing digitalization and more and more applications of artificial intelligence, demand is likely to continue to rise.
The CEO of Ionos, Achim Weiß, calls power consumption the highest cost factor in operating a data center. “That’s why we’ve always made sure to use our own air conditioning techniques and other energy-saving measures such as highly efficient power supplies to consume as little electricity as possible. Because every watt of electricity that we use less is good for the environment and saves us and therefore our customers money,” explains Weiß .
And: Today, energy efficiency is also expected by customers, analysts and investors. The company therefore announced early on as part of its “Climate Strategy 2030” that it would also use the waste heat from servers and air conditioning units in new data centers and feed it into local local or district heating networks.
Law only affects large data centers
However, this assumes that there is a buyer. Weiß supports that data center operators should pass on their waste heat. But: “Here we rely on the partnership of the municipalities as buyers of district heating and the provision of the necessary pipes and infrastructure.” According to the law, the obligation expires if no buyer is found after six months.
A passage in the draft law that only allowed data centers within five kilometers of a heating network was probably also omitted from the final text of the law. “Other factors such as the infrastructure, in terms of suitable power supply or fiber optic connection, or security against flooding, make it not easy to find a suitable location for data centers,” explains Nick Kriegskotte from the industry association Bitkom. On the other hand: “The law only affects large data centers. It will usually not play a decisive role in company-owned data centers in medium-sized companies.”
Critics see the industry’s lobbying success
According to environmental associations, the Energy Efficiency Act is a success for the industry lobby. Leonard Burtscher from the Munich Environmental Institute, for example, speaks of a “softened energy efficiency law”: “Only the very largest data centers are regulated by the law. This means that less than one percent of all German data centers are obliged to take savings measures.”
Instead, politics could have woken up “a sleeping giant” with energy efficiency, according to Burtscher – because a lot of energy and therefore money is currently disappearing into thin air: “There are arguments about every new wind turbine. At the same time, the construction of thousands could be avoided if Germany would use energy more efficiently.”
Claudia Kemfert also sums up “a lot of effort with little success” and misses stricter requirements for more data centers. “The use of waste heat is very central to the energy transition.” But energy-intensive companies have “obtained high exemptions through loud lobby announcements. And that continues.”