Data-center law in Germany

Baugesetzbuch (BauGB), § 35

Applies to both

A project in the undeveloped area (Aussenbereich, land outside a binding land-use plan or a built-up locality) is permissible as of right only where public interests do not conflict with it, adequate infrastructure connection is secured, and it falls within a closed list of privileged uses: agricultural and horticultural operations, public supply of electricity, gas, telecommunications, heat and water or a site-bound commercial operation, uses that by their special requirements or effects on the surroundings must be sited outside the area, and a series of renewable-energy, storage and biomass uses subject to their own conditions.

A data centre is not named among these privileged uses.

Any other project can be approved only case by case, as a discretionary decision that must not impair enumerated public interests: conformity with the local land-use plan or a landscape plan, harmful environmental effects, uneconomic infrastructure expenditure, nature conservation, soil protection, monument protection or landscape character, agricultural-structure or water-management effects, the creation or growth of scattered settlement, and interference with radio or radar installations.

Source: Full text of law

Energieeffizienzgesetz (EnEfG), §§ 11, 12, 13

Applies to both

Data centres that started operating before 1 July 2026 must be built and run to reach a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.5 or lower from 1 July 2027 and 1.3 or lower from 1 July 2030, on a durable annual average.

A data centre starting operation on or after 1 July 2026 must reach a PUE of 1.2 or lower and a reused-energy share, under the DIN EN 50600-4-6 standard, of at least 10 percent, rising to at least 15 percent for a data centre starting from 1 July 2027 and at least 20 percent for one starting from 1 July 2028, each within two years of starting operation; the reused-energy share does not apply where the operator shows the share later became unattainable for reasons beyond its control, where an agreement with a nearby municipality or heat-network operator commits to building the network within ten years, or where a nearby heat-network operator fails within six months to accept the operator's offer to supply reused heat at cost.

Operators must also cover their data centres' electricity consumption 50 percent from renewable sources from 1 January 2024 and 100 percent from 1 January 2027, on a balance-sheet basis. Separately, operators of data centres must establish an energy or environmental management system by 1 July 2025, continuously measure the electrical power and energy demand of the facility's essential components, and take measures continuously improving its energy efficiency.

A data centre with at least 1 megawatt of non-redundant rated connected capacity, or at least 300 kilowatts if publicly owned or operated for a public body, must have that management system validated or certified from 1 January 2026, though a data centre whose reused energy supplies at least half of a heat network and whose average total final energy consumption over the preceding three calendar years is at most 7.5 gigawatt-hours is exempt from the management-system duty.

The same duties apply correspondingly to operators of information technology, with their own connected-capacity thresholds. Finally, a data centre operator must publish, and submit to the federal government by 31 March each year, information about the data centre for the preceding calendar year as specified in the Act's Annex 3.

Source: Full text of law

Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG), § 17

Applies to both

Operators of energy-supply networks must connect end consumers, downstream networks, electric-vehicle charging points, generation and gas-storage installations, biogas processing plants, and electrical-energy storage installations to their network on technical and economic terms that are appropriate, non-discriminatory, transparent, and no less favourable than the terms the operator applies within its own group or to affiliated undertakings.

A network operator may refuse a connection only where it proves that granting it is operationally, economically or technically impossible or unreasonable, must give written reasons for a refusal, and, where capacity is the constraint and the applicant requests it, must also state the measures and associated costs that expanding the network would require.

Source: Full text of law

Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz (BImSchG), § 4

Applies to both

Erecting and operating an installation that, by its nature or operation, is especially likely to cause harmful environmental effects or otherwise endanger, significantly disadvantage or significantly inconvenience the general public or the neighbourhood requires a permit, as does a stationary waste-disposal installation for storing or treating waste.

An installation that serves no commercial purpose and is not used in the course of a business needs a permit only where it is especially likely to cause harmful environmental effects through air pollution or noise. The federal government fixes, by statutory ordinance requiring the Bundesrat's consent, which installations require a permit; that ordinance's provisions are not described here, so whether a data centre's own components, such as its backup generation, fall within it is not stated.

Source: Full text of law