Europe has an Energy Efficiency Directive, Germany has an Energy Efficiency Act, and operators there can be fined for inefficiency.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam has declared war on sleeping servers, and set limits on where facilities can be built. Across Europe, in response to congested electric grids and shortages of land, local governments are stepping in to regulate data centers.

Sometimes they want them to be greener, sometimes they want them to be quieter, and sometimes they just want them somewhere else. But any data center operator now has to be prepared to meet new reporting requirements and talk to the local authorities about their business.

This is not a bad thing, says Venessa Moffat, head of channel partner manager EMEA Europe for EkkoSense. It's about time those discussions happened.

People who run cities need to understand the businesses that are located there - and from those discussions, new partnerships can emerge.

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