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Data-centre rules tracker

What it measures

How the rules for data centres on the grid are chosen, summarised and kept current: one row per official document, re-read at its source every month.

Inputs

  • The official text of each instrument: a law, a regulator's decision, a ministerial direction, a parliamentary resolution or a published draft
  • The legislature's or ministry's own record of where each instrument stands

Method and weighting

Each row is one public instrument that sets a condition on data centres connecting to or building near the electricity grid. Its sentence summarises what the instrument asks, in plain words, from the instrument's own text; a news report is never the source.

The status is read from the issuer's own record: a draft is published for comment, an agreed row is a political agreement or a parliamentary resolution, an adopted row has passed, and an in-force row applies today. Adopted and in-force rows are drawn solid; drafts and agreed rows are drawn dashed.

Every row carries the date it was last re-read. The builder refuses to publish a row older than the limit set in the tracker's configuration, so a rule that has moved on cannot stay on the page unchecked.

Window

As of the re-read date printed on each row; every row is re-read at its source on the first of each month. Data last refreshed on .

Known limits

  • A summary leaves out conditions, exemptions and transitional rules; the linked text is the authority.
  • Rules set by a city or a grid operator are left out; the tracker holds national, devolved and EU instruments.
  • A row changes only when a person re-reads its source, so a change can sit unreported for up to a month.

Used on

Sources: MITECO, Folketinget, Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, Commission for Regulation of Utilities, Bundestag, Staatsblad, EUR-Lex. Each is described on the Data sources page.