European Data Centers Face Scrutiny Over Non-Disclosure of Energy and Water Usage

European Data Centers Fail to Comply with Energy Reporting Mandates

Most data centers in Europe are keeping their environmental impact data secret, according to a study by Lighthouse Report in collaboration with Trouw and other European media. Despite the European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) requiring data centers with an installed capacity of at least 500 kilowatts (kW) to report their energy and water consumption, compliance remains low three years after the directive took effect.

In the Netherlands, the gap in reporting is particularly stark. While the Dutch Datacenter Association (DDA) identified 186 commercial data centers with a capacity of 500 kW or more at the end of last year, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) has data on only 104 of them. Furthermore, public figures for electricity usage are available for only 44 centers and water usage for only 47—meaning less than a quarter of the larger Dutch data centers are transparent about their resource consumption.

Rising Energy Demand and Grid Congestion

Data center proliferation, driven by the rise of cloud services and AI applications, has led to a significant increase in electricity and water consumption for server operations and cooling.

Key statistics for the Netherlands include:

Electricity Consumption: In 2024, data centers used 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, representing 4.6% of the country's total electricity consumption. This figure has nearly doubled in five years.
Future Projections: Grid operator TenneT projects that data center electricity consumption will rise to between 10% and 15% of the Netherlands' total electricity by 2030.
Infrastructure Impact: This surge in demand occurs while the Netherlands faces severe grid congestion, leaving businesses, institutions, and new housing developments on waiting lists for power access.
Individual Impact: Data from the RVO revealed that Microsoft's largest data center in the Netherlands alone accounts for 1% of the national electricity consumption. Google, however, does not disclose its usage data for its two large Dutch facilities.

Water Usage and Environmental Risks

While data centers are estimated to account for only 0.1% of total water consumption in the Netherlands, this small proportion is considered critical due to climate change and prolonged periods of drought and water shortages. The lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess the actual risk to local water supplies during periods of scarcity.

Industry Perspectives and Counterpoints

Public and industry discussions regarding these disclosure failures highlight several conflicting viewpoints on the necessity and enforcement of of the reporting mandates:

Enforcement and Regulatory Gaps

Some argue that the reporting requirements are effectively guidelines rather than laws because they lack enforcement.

"If any law is supposed to have any practical impact on the society, it needs to be enforced. Otherwise it is a guideline at best, not a law."

There is also a technical distinction between EU Regulations (which apply immediately) and EU Directives (which require member states to pass national laws to implement them), which may contribute to the length of time it takes for these mandates to reach full enforcement.

Strategic Non-Disclosure

Some observers suggest that data centers refuse to disclose information to avoid public backlash or to protect competitive secrets.

"They refuse it because if they would say '1 million liters a year!' the knee-jerk reaction will be completely predictable... the debate is completely based on emotion and anger right now."

Others suggest that resource use can be used to draw correlations to output, making electricity and water usage competitive secrets.

Perspective on Scale

Critics of the environmental narrative argue that data center water usage is negligible compared to agriculture or industrial sites. They suggest that the focus on data centers is a a way to "green-wash" AI fears as environmental concerns, and that the users should focus on the societal impacts of AI rather than its resource consumption.