On the Cabinet’s planned consideration of the amendment to the German Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) on Wednesday, 24 June 2026, eco – Association of the Internet Industry and the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany state:
With the amendment to the German Energy Efficiency Act, the German Federal Government faces a pivotal decision for Germany as a digital location. According to information available to the Alliance, the EnEfG amendment is due to go before the Cabinet on 24 June with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) threshold of 1.2 – and therefore without the urgently needed, practical adjustments for data centres. Power Usage Effectiveness describes the ratio of a data centre’s total energy consumption to the energy actually used by the IT infrastructure, such as servers, storage systems and network technology. This would not be a mere technical detail, but a serious mistake for Germany as a business location.
One year after the conclusion of the coalition agreement and just under two months after the publication of the national data centre strategy, the German Federal Government is now at risk of breaking its commitments to Germany as a data centre location. The coalition agreement promises to strengthen Germany’s position as a location for digital infrastructure, to accelerate the construction and expansion of data centres, and to create practical framework conditions. An amendment to the EnEfG imposing a rigid operational PUE of 1.2 achieves the opposite: it creates new investment risks and exacerbates national special burdens.
“Successful data centre investments in Germany are a basic prerequisite for the economic recovery that our country urgently needs – and in which the technology sector plays a decisive role,” says Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board of eco – Association of the Internet Industry. “I find it completely incomprehensible that Germany, of all countries, is taking a national special path here. Instead of implementing European requirements with minimal bureaucracy, as agreed in the coalition agreement, there is a risk that old overregulation will simply be continued. A clear departure from this would have sent a strong economic policy signal to the sector.”
eco and the Alliance are calling on the German Federal Government to amend the cabinet draft of the EnEfG amendment before it is debated on 24 June. Should this not happen, the German Bundestag must step in. We hope that, during the legislative process, Parliament will make the adjustments that the German Federal Government was unwilling to make: practical PUE requirements, full European harmonisation, no national special burdens, and reliable framework conditions for investment in digital infrastructure.
Data centres are not a marginal issue in energy policy. They are a prerequisite for AI applications, industrial digitalisation, digital administration, cybersecurity, cloud services and resilient network infrastructures. Without high-performance data centres, there can be no sovereign digital hub.
“A blanket operational PUE of 1.2 creates an economic and operational disadvantage compared with other competitors in Europe,” says Volker Ludwig, Spokesperson for the Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany. “It ignores volatility, peak utilisation periods, security requirements, site-specific conditions, technical redundancies and the specific requirements of certified infrastructures. Security-critical and resilient data centres, in particular, cannot be assessed solely on the basis of a theoretically optimised efficiency value.”
It is particularly problematic that data centres in Germany are already subject to considerable special requirements: from energy and environmental management systems, through reporting obligations, to the accounting-based coverage of electricity consumption from renewable energy sources. At the same time, the structurally high electricity costs remain unresolved. This creates a double burden: high energy prices on the one hand, and national over-regulation on the other. This is not a location strategy, but a deterrent signal to investors.
In addition, uniform efficiency standards and labelling requirements are currently being prepared at European level. Germany should support this harmonisation process, rather than once again striking out on its own with national special requirements. According to a Borderstep study, Germany’s data centres are already the most energy-efficient in the world by international comparison. Exceeding European sustainability targets at national level therefore does not strengthen climate protection, but weakens the country’s position as a business location and, in cases of doubt, shifts investment to other European or non-European markets.
“The German Federal Government stands at a crossroads in digital policy: either it takes its own commitments from the coalition agreement and data centre strategy seriously and sends a signal for economic recovery, or it politically obstructs investment in digital infrastructure in Germany,” says Süme.
“Germany cannot simultaneously announce AI gigafactories, cloud sovereignty and digital resilience while at the same time using regulation to hold back the data centres that make all of this possible in the first place. Anyone who is serious about digital sovereignty must create investment-friendly conditions for data centres in Germany. This amendment to the EnEfG does the opposite.”
