Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 of 14 March 2024 on the first phase of the establishment of a common Union rating scheme for data centres

This Regulation sets out the information and key performance indicators to be communicated to the European database by the operators of data centres with an installed information technology power demand of at least 500 kW and are necessary for the establishment of a common Union scheme for rating the sustainability of data centres in the Union, as well as a common measurement and calculation methodology. It also defines the first data centre sustainability indicators that will be calculated based on the information and key performance indicators communicated to the European database on data centres.

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply: (1) ‘enterprise data centre’ means a data centre that is operated by an enterprise, and of which the sole purpose is to deliver and manage the information technology needs of the enterprise; (2) ‘colocation data centre’ means a data centre in which one or more customers install and manage their own network or networks, servers and storage equipment and services; (3) ‘co-hosting data centre’ means a data centre in which one or more customers are provided with access to network or networks, servers, and storage equipment on which they operate their own services and applications and where both the information technology equipment and the support infrastructure of the building are provided as a service by the data centre operator; (4) ‘enterprise data centre operator’ means a physical or legal person who manages the entire enterprise data centre, including the building and the use of the information technology services delivered; (5) ‘colocation data centre operator’ means a physical or legal person who manages and sells space, security, network access, power and cooling capacity in the entire colocation data centre to one or more customers who install and manage their own network or networks, servers and storage equipment and services; (6) ‘co-hosting data centre operator’ means a physical or legal person who manages the co-hosting data centre space, security, network access, power, cooling, network or networks, servers, and storage equipment, and part of the necessary software to deliver information technology services to one or more customers, including information technology outsourcing; (7) ‘data centre operator’ means enterprise data centre operator, colocation data centre operator or co-hosting data centre operator; (8) ‘colocation customer’ means a physical or legal person who owns and manages one or more networks, servers and storage equipment located in a colocation data centre in which they purchase managed space, power, and cooling capacity; (9) ‘co-hosting customer’ means a physical or legal person who obtains access to a network or networks, servers, and storage equipment in a co-hosting data centre on which they operate their own services and applications; (10) ‘information technology outsourcing’ is the use of external service providers to deliver information technology-enabled business processes, application services and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes; (11) ‘data centre total floor area’ means the total floor area of all floors of the structure or group of structures that constitute the data centre; (12) ‘data centre computer room floor area’ means the total floor area within the data centre that accommodates the data processing, data storage and telecommunication equipment that provide the information technology services of the data centre; (13) ‘data centre redundancy’ means the duplication of certain sets of components or functions of a data centre in such a way that if one set fails or needs to be taken down for maintenance, the other set or sets can take over; (14) ‘installed information technology power demand’ means the sum of the nominal power demand, in kW, of the network or networks, servers and storage equipment installed in the data centre computer room floor area; (15) ‘rated information technology load’ means the maximum load of the network or networks, servers, and storage equipment, installed in the data centre computer room floor area, that the data centre infrastructure for power distribution and environmental control is capable of handling while providing the desired service availability.

1 By 15 September 2024, then by 15 May 2025, and every year thereafter, reporting data centre operators shall communicate to the European database the information and key performance indicators set out in Annex I and Annex II regarding the data centre they operate. The communication to the European database of this information and key performance indicators shall take place via a national reporting scheme if the Member State where the reporting data centre is located has established such a scheme. Otherwise, the datacentre operators shall communicate this information and key performance indicators directly to the European database. The information and key performance indicators shall cover the calendar year immediately preceding the reporting year. Where a reporting data centre has been in operation for less than a year, the data centre operator shall report only for the period the data centre has been in operation, indicating as well that period.

2 For the first reporting period, if a data centre operator cannot monitor and gather one or more of the key performance indicators set out in Annex II, points 1(d), 1(e), 1(h)-(l), and 1(o)-(r), for technical reasons, the data centre operator may omit this information explaining the reasons for this omission.

3 For the first two reporting periods, if a colocation data centre operator cannot monitor and gather the necessary data to sufficiently calculate the key performance indicators referred to in points 2(a) and 2(b) of Annex II, it shall estimate and indicate the percentage of the data centre computer room floor area that the information communicated to the European database covers. Colocation data centre operators may gather the key performance indicators set out in Annex II, from their colocation customers, if necessary, by setting up an anonymous internal reporting mechanism.

4 If a reporting data centre includes both co-hosting and colocation customers, paragraphs 2 and 3 of this Article apply accordingly.

The data centre sustainability indicators and the methodology to calculate them are set out in Annex III.

1 The European database shall apply a common user interface as well as a common application programming interface ensuring that all reporting data centres are able to communicate, in the same way, the information and key performance indicators referred to in Annexes I and II.

2 The information, and key performance indicators, communicated to the European database, and the data centre sustainability indicators, in accordance with Annex III, shall be made public in an aggregated manner, at Member State and Union level, in accordance with Annex IV.

3 Member States shall have access to all information and key performance indicators communicated to the European database by data centres in their territory pursuant to Article 3.

4 The Commission shall have access to all information and key performance indicators communicated to the European database pursuant to Article 3.

5 The Commission and Member States concerned shall keep confidential all information and key performance indicators for individual data centres that are communicated to the database pursuant to Article 3. Such information shall be considered confidential information affecting the commercial interests of operators and owners of data centres in accordance with Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents and Article 4(2)(d) of Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on public access to environmental information.

6 The aggregated data collected under this Regulation can be reused for European statistics in line with the principles defined in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council .

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.