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Guides

Plain, sourced guides for engineers, operators and sustainability teams who need energy figures that hold up.

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Reviewed 5 November 2026

EU rules

The EU data-center rating scheme

A-to-G grades for energy and water, adopted 21 September 2026.

EU reporting crosswalk

How the Joule Ledger relates to the EU rating criteria and reporting indicators.

Prices and terms

What each AAERL offer costs, with its annual limit.

Measurement

How to measure AI inference energy

Eight steps, from task set to report.

AI energy benchmarks compared

MLPerf Power, the AI Energy Score and ML.ENERGY, and what each measures.

How energy metrics get gamed

Five ways figures mislead, and how to spot them.

Ratios and context

PUE, WUE and CUE explained

The three facility ratios, their formulas and their limits.

Data-center electricity use

The US and global figures, who produced them and why they differ.

Scope 2: location vs market

Where energy ends and emissions factors begin.

Claims and buying

Substantiating AI energy claims

EU Directive 2024/825, the FTC Green Guides and a boundary checklist.

Procurement energy questions

What to ask suppliers of colocation, cloud and GPU capacity.

Energy report checklist

What a credible energy report must contain, in order.

Questions

Who writes these guides?

AAERL. Each guide cites its sources and shows when it was last reviewed. They are general information, not legal advice.

Keep reading

The EU rating schemeThe EU data-center rating scheme adopted 21 September 2026: separate A-to-G grades for energy (PUE) and water (WUE), who it covers, and the 2027 dates.How to measure AI inference energyHow to measure the energy of AI inference properly: task set, quality gate, meter point, analyzer, ranging, 60-second windows, closure check and reporting.How energy metrics get gamedFive ways AI and data-center energy figures mislead: shifted boundaries, missing cooling, loose quality bars, estimates as data, picked months.GlossaryPlain definitions of AI and data-center energy measurement terms, from PUE, WUE and meter points to the Landauer limit, Decision Yield and audit grades.

Take the next step.

Plain, sourced guides to measuring AI and data-center energy: the EU rating scheme, EU reporting, inference energy, benchmarks and how metrics get gamed.

Try the closure checker The glossary