The Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany, founded under the umbrella of eco – Association of the Internet Industry, criticises the recently announced draft of an electricity price brake and warns of a lasting weakening of Germany as a digital location:
“Data centres are the foundation for digital transformation and a major component of the digital ecosystem. Both industry and public administration should care about where their data is located in the future,” says Volker Ludwig, Co-spokesperson of the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany.
“Currently, however, we as data centres are confronted with regulatory approaches that make us sceptical about the German federal government’s commitment to an efficient, digitally sovereign and sustainable digital location in Germany. On the one hand, the industry is treated as an energy-intensive sector in the recently published draft of the German Energy Efficiency Act, which is the only economic sector to be explicitly given its own section. Yet, the draft of an electricity price brake currently being circulated for comment does not define data centres as energy-intensive end consumers and thus not as potential beneficiaries of any compensation payments for the raised electricity prices.
As Ludwig continues to say, eco is disturbed by these contradictory signals from the German federal government towards its industry and would like to renew its commitment to the location as well as our willingness to exchange views in order to shape the right framework conditions for a digitally efficient and sustainable future for Germany. “With regard to the electricity price brake, we specifically call on the German federal government to make use of the European leeway and to also consider data centres as a systemically significant industry within the context of planned emergency aid programmes related to the energy crisis. We also call on the government to consider an exemption in the profit levy for the so-called Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), as these are the only means of choice when purchasing renewable energy for the operation of data centres in Germany.”
