The European Union has given in to pressure from Big Tech to water down its strict low-carbon energy requirements in order to pursue its AI agenda as the U.S. and China pull far ahead and the EU plays catchup.
Citing a draft document released this week, the Financial Times reported today the EU would reconsider an earlier idea to only allow Big Tech data center operators offset the emissions of their baseload power suppliers by buying certificates from wind and solar operators, but only of facilities built over the last ten years and close to the location of the data center.
Big Tech majors, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, as well as industry group the European Data Centre Association pushed back against this idea, arguing that it would raise their costs, with the implication that investments may be reconsidered. The EU is determined to build its own AI industry and for that, it needs U.S. Big Tech for lack of local majors in the area.
With a view to that agenda, the EU has agreed to drop many of its requirements and even discuss the purchase of emission offset certificates from nuclear power generators, the FT said in its report.
“If data centres are not powered by new, local renewables matched in real time to their energy use, they will drive up demand for volatile imported gas,” one climate think-tank head told the FT. This will in turn push energy prices higher and compromise the EU’s energy security, Killian Daly from EnergyTag also said.
This is the latest step back for the EU in its fight to arrest climate change with regulations, after delaying the entry into effect of penalties under its methane regulation, after pressure from Qatar and the United States—its biggest LNG suppliers—which said the regulation would kill LNG trade.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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