Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
Jump to main content
Search
REG AD
ON-PREM
Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
Consumption rose another 10% while restrictions on most new grid connections remained around Dublin
Dan Robinson
Dan<br>Robinson
IT INFRASTRUCTURE REPORTER
Published<br>sat 11 Jul 2026 // 11:00 UTC
Electricity used by datacenters in Ireland increased by 10 percent during 2025, despite an effective moratorium on most new datacenter grid connections in the Dublin area.<br>The latest figures from Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that giant server farms now account for nearly a quarter of the country's metered electricity consumption.<br>Their share rose to 23 percent in 2025 after passing 20 percent in 2023 and 14 percent in 2021 – up from just 5 percent way back in 2015.
REG AD
According to the CSO, the energy sucked up by massive bit barns increased by 10 percent last year, expanding from 6,973 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2024 to 7,663 GWh in 2025. All other customers consumed just 2 percent more electricity over the same period.
REG AD
In fact, datacenters used more electricity than urban households, which accounted for 18 percent of metered use, and more than twice the rural-household share of 9 percent.<br>"Datacenter consumption has grown every single year without exception, more than doubling between 2015 and 2019 from 1,240 GWh to 2,490 GWh, and tripling again between 2019 and 2025, reaching 7,663 GWh," commented Grzegorz Głaczyński, statistician in the CSO's Climate and Energy Division.<br>Things got so bad in Ireland that at one point there were fears that the ever-expanding data dormitories might eat up as much as a third of the Emerald Isle's electricity by now.<br>The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) put an effective moratorium on connecting new server farms to the electricity grid, at least in the Dublin area, where much of the activity tends to concentrate.
MORE CONTEXT
AI-driven datacenter builds drive Microsoft's emissions up a quarter in one year
EU appears to find datacenter emissions easier to offset than lobbyists
Datacenter growth may run into a power wall by 2030
Brussels' datacenter efficiency scorecard may come with a credit warning
This was lifted in December of last year, meaning electricity consumption still rose by a tenth while the moratorium was in place for nearly all of 2025.<br>Under stricter new regulations, server farm operators seeking a grid connection of more than 10 MW must also now provide generators or battery systems capable of providing the same power. They will be required to feed power back to the national grid, if and when required, a system already pioneered by Microsoft and Digital Realty.<br>Like a growing number of places, Ireland has also seen protests against datacenters, which perhaps isn't surprising given that there are understood to be more than 80 of them for a relatively small country of just over 5 million people.<br>Even in the US, the Trump administration is having to work to defuse public opposition to datacenters, asking the tech giants to commit that their expanding server farm estates won't spike energy bills or drain local water supplies across the US. ®
infrastructure<br>datacenter<br>ireland<br>on-prem
REG AD
AI + ML
Memory makers are slaves to the boom-bust rollercoaster, and the AI boom is the wildest ride of all
The RAMpocalypse may be the precursor to the AIpocalypse
AI AND ML
It's an AI web, and we're just rats in the walls
Bots, not people, are now the ones who use the internet the most
Canonical Managed Kubeflow lands on Azure
PARTNER CONTENT: Why platform teams are swapping DIY Kubeflow for Canonical's managed service
AI + ML
AI customers are coming around to the idea that small is beautiful
OpenAI and Anthropic have built AI Swiss Army Knives, but the future may be smaller built-for-purpose tools
BOFH
BOFH: Cross-department AI pitches are easier to swallow with a pint in hand
Some ideas need workshopping, others need a warning light
ON-PREM
Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
Consumption rose another 10% while restrictions on most new grid connections remained around Dublin
MOST POPULAR
ai and ml
Even banks and hyperscalers are now sounding the alarm about the AI bubble
OFFBEAT
C programmers commit fresh crimes against readability
software
Court tosses Microsoft's appeal in pre-owned software licenses battle
Security
GitHub AI agent leaks private repos when asked nicely
applications
Microsoft to switch off OWA Light after nearly two decades
AI
AI + ML
Memory makers are slaves to the boom-bust rollercoaster, and the AI boom is the wildest ride of all
The RAMpocalypse may be the precursor to the AIpocalypse
AI + ML
AI customers are coming around to the idea that small is beautiful
OpenAI and Anthropic have built AI Swiss Army Knives, but the future may be smaller built-for-purpose...