Energy Efficiency for Sustainable Data Centres

Decree-Law 84/2024 was published in the Official Gazette on 4 November 2024.

This Decree-Law partially transposes Directive (EU) 2023/1791 and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 with regard to the obligations of owners and operators of data centres with regard to energy efficiency.

Under the Directive and this Decree-Law, owners and operators of data centres with an installed power of more than 500 kW relating to information technology equipment will have to comply with transparency and sustainability indicator reporting obligations. In particular, the Decree-Law transposes the obligation to disclose energy consumption and water consumption indicators, among others, contained in the Annex.

The annual reports on these indicators will be necessary to support the European system for rating the sustainability of data centres. To this extent, the disclosure of this data aims to fill a gap in the measurement of the data centre industry’s environmental footprint.

This Decree-Law also defines incentives for data centres located in Portugal that wish to adopt the practices set out in the European code of conduct on energy efficiency in data centres.

The DGEG (Directorate-General for Energy and Geology) will be the national authority responsible for monitoring compliance with the Decree-Law and the Delegated Regulation, as well as publishing information on the key energy performance indicators for data centres.

There will be a penalty scheme with administrative offences punishable by fines of up to EUR 40,000.00 for legal persons.

The Decree-Law to which we refer has been in force since 5 November 2024.