alt Hacker NewsFrom the article:
> The European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) obliges data centers with an installed capacity of at least 500 kilowatts (kW) to report data including their energy and water consumption. In practice, few do so, despite the directive being in effect for three years.
I do not understand how that is even possible.
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.
I think what would help is for these companies to each receive strict and hefty fines for non-disclosing the electricity and water consumption data they are obliged to disclose.
I assume that after that they would report all the required data very quickly.
Replies
Because it is an EU-DIRECTIVE.
Directives are not the same as regulations .
Directives are goals that must be achieved by adapting existing national laws or introducing new ones, and that takes time.
Perhaps this article is one step in the process of forcing disclosure. The Dutch parliament has recently (April 2026) clarified its law implementing the EED.
My account is banned, so for whomever having [showdead] on:
European directive is not a law, it's a directive.
It's up to the national governments to create applicable laws that are to the letter and to the spirit of a European directive. Then national bodies will start applying the law and govern its implementation/adherence.
An by "up to" I mean they are obliged... eventually.
The purpose of these laws is to give the state the option to crack down on anyone they feel like at any time. They are not meant to be obeyed, and that is obvious to anyone with eyes.
It's probably because directives have to be read into law at the country level.
(Directives are binding on states. They transpose them into national law, possibly adding additional clauses as it goes past (EU directives set a minimum standard, not a maximum) at which point they're binding on people.)
Nobody ever said the EU was efficient. Look for a deadline for that transposition on the original directive.