Data centers accounted for 23% of Ireland’s total electricity consumption in 2025, according to data released by the country’s Central Statistics Office last week. The report revealed that data center consumption rose to 7,663 GWh in 2025 from 6,973 GWh in 2024, a 10% rise in a single year. Meanwhile, consumption by the rest of the country increased by just 2% within the same period.
Viewed over a ten-year period, the 2025 figure represents a steep 360% increase from 2015, when data centers’ total consumption was just 5%. The rise in consumption is even steeper when measured on a quarterly basis. Q4 2026’s consumption was 1,991 GWh, a 584% rise from Q1 2015’s 291 GWh.
“Newly compiled quarterly figures spanning 2015 to 2025 highlight a substantial increase in metered electricity consumption by data centers. Over this period, data center consumption saw a significant increase, from 291 GWh in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,991 GWh in Q4 2025, growing by 584%,” noted Dr. Grzegorz Głaczyński, an in-house statistician in the CSO’s Climate and Energy Division.
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At 23%, data centers’ consumption was almost as much as residential, including both urban and rural dwellings, which stood at 28%. The roll oout of these server farms — which have rapidly increased in number around the world due to the AI boom — have sparked a global debate. While they are critical to the AI technological revolution, there has been growing concern about their impact on the local communities where they are situated. Critics cite the impact of the immense electricity consumption on residents’ bills as one of many concerns.
The Republic of Ireland, with a relatively small population of around five million, is home to around 89 data centers, primarily clustered around the Greater Dublin Area. The majority and the largest belong to hyperscalers, including Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Meta, that build and operate facilities exclusively for their own cloud infrastructure, consumer apps, and AI frameworks. The rest are owned by colocation providers that lease out capacity.
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While Ireland’s initial data center boom was driven by traditional cloud storage and social media applications, the explosion of generative AI has led to a sharp increase. Due to fears that soaring electricity demand from server farms would cause widespread blackouts, the country’s Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) issued an emergency regulatory direction in November 2021 that imposed a de facto moratorium on new data center grid connections. The policy mandated that the national grid operator, EirGrid, immediately halt the processing of standard power applications for new data facilities, requiring developers to either supply their own on-site electricity generation or relocate to unconstrained regions outside the Greater Dublin Area.
Despite the moratorium, data center consumption continued to rise steadily, to the point that the International Energy Agency predicted in 2024 that data centers would account for a third of the country’s electricity consumption by 2026. The data show that the prediction remains a possibility, as the 23% figure was for 2025 and consumption has risen steadily every year.
Ireland has replaced the moratorium with a new Large Energy Users (LEU) Connection Policy, enacted by the CRU in late 2025 to manage data center growth. Under this policy, developers of new data centers (over 10 MVA) must provide 100% on-site, flexible power generation to meet demand, while sourcing at least 80% of annual electricity from new, unsubsidized renewable projects within six years of operation.
The immense electricity consumption is not unique to Ireland; surveys indicate that global data center electricity consumption will grow by 26% this year. These concerns, as well as issues over water usage and noise pollution, have led to growing anti-data sentiment in the US, with 70% of Americans reportedly opposed to siting data centers nearby. Protests have led to the cancellation of over 75 data center projects in the U.S. in Q1 2026.
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