AI runs on power. The law now wants the meter reading.

Providers of general-purpose AI models must include the known or estimated energy consumption of the model in their technical documentation (Article 53 and Annex XI). If the figure is unknown, it can be estimated from the computational resources used.

Under Article 12 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2023/1791, operators of data centres in the EU with an installed IT power demand of at least 500 kW report energy performance each year. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 sets the indicators, including PUE, water use, renewable energy share and waste heat reuse.

Quoted companies and large unquoted companies and LLPs report UK energy use and emissions in their annual report under Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR). Large undertakings carry out ESOS energy audits every four years. AI and data centre energy count towards both.

Only with evidence. In the EU, generic environmental claims without recognised excellent performance, and neutral claims based on offsetting, have been banned since 27 September 2026. In the UK, the CMA's Green Claims Code applies.

From your infrastructure's metering where you run it, from your cloud provider's reports, or estimated from compute (hardware power multiplied by hours, times the data centre's PUE). Record the method alongside the figure.

A sealed statement of energy used over a period, with the per-request figure and the evidence files fingerprinted. It is timestamped in Bitcoin, so it backs reports and green claims and cannot be changed afterwards.