Data Centers: What Are the Requirements Under the DDADUE Law?

Data centers ≥ 500 kW (at the SIRET level): transparency requirement

The DDADUE Act stipulates that any operator of a data center with an installed capacity of ≥ 500 kW must submit a transparency report no later than May 15 of each year, covering data from the previous calendar year.

Administrative declaration

The operator must first file an administrative declaration with the Minister of Energy indicating:

• The SIRET number
• The data center’s installed capacity
• The name and email address of the contact person

For new data centers, this declaration must be submitted within two months of their commissioning.

Annual information to be submitted

In addition to the administrative declaration, data center operators must submit the following information:

• Administrative data on the data center: identification, location, operator’s name, etc.
• Data specific to the data center’s operations: floor area, type of use, date of commissioning, etc.
• Energy and sustainability indicators: total energy consumption, share of renewable energy used, PUE, water consumption for cooling, share of recovered waste heat, etc.
• IT capacity indicators: installed IT power, total computing capacity, number of installed racks, server utilization rate…
• Indicators on processed data traffic.

Data verification and correction procedures have not yet been defined.

Submission requirements: two cumulative obligations

The data must be submitted via the European digital platform established by the European Commission. It must also be made available to the public in an open, structured format that allows third parties to download and use it, on a dedicated webpage, the address of which must be provided to ADEME so that it can be listed in a national digital registry.

The online publication must explicitly state whether:

• The data has been certified or audited by a third party;
• The data center implements an energy management system (such as ISO 50001);
• The data center adheres to the European Code of Conduct on Energy Efficiency for Data Centers.

Penalties for non-compliance

In the event of non-compliance, the Minister of Energy may issue a formal notice requiring the operator to comply within a maximum period of one year (such notice may be made public). At the end of this period, the Minister may impose an administrative fine of up to €50,000 per data center. 

Data centers ≥ 1 MW: obligation to recover waste heat

For facilities with a capacity exceeding 1 MW (at the SIRET level), the law now requires data center operators to recover waste heat and supply it to private or public facilities outside the site (connection to district heating networks, heating of adjacent buildings, etc.). This requirement is in addition to the transparency reporting obligation.

The criterion used to measure the reuse of waste heat is the Energy Reuse Factor (ERF), which is calculated by dividing the amount of energy reused (kWh) by the total amount of energy consumed (kWh). Under current regulations, this factor must be equal to or greater than 0.2 (20% of waste heat reused). This threshold may be gradually increased to 0.4 by simple ministerial decrees, depending on technological developments in the coming years.

Mandatory cost-benefit analysis

For new projects or major upgrades to data centers ≥ 1 MW, operators must conduct an analysis to assess recovery opportunities and their technical and economic feasibility.

This analysis must be submitted to the department responsible for processing building permits at city hall and/or included in environmental permit applications submitted to the competent authority (DRIEAT/DREAL) as well as to the regional prefect.

Possible Exemptions

An exemption may be granted if recovery is not technically feasible or economically viable. For example, if the data center is too far away, geographically speaking, from sites capable of utilizing waste heat. In this case, the cost-benefit analysis must demonstrate this.

Penalties for non-compliance

The same penalties as for the requirement to file an annual transparency report apply: a formal notice followed by a fine of up to €50,000 per data center.

By Jessica Le Goff, Head of Acceptance & Sustainability, APL Data Center.