Data centers gobbled up 23% of Ireland’s electricity supply in 2025 – nearly as much power as every home in the country combined
Figures from the Central Statistics Office come amidst rising concerns over the impact of data centers on Ireland's power grid
Irish data centers consumed a quarter of the country's electricity last year, almost as much as every home in the country combined.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that data center electricity consumption rose to 7,663 GWh in 2025 from 6,973 GWh in 2024 – a 10% rise – to hit 23% of the national total.
For comparison, 2025 consumption stood at 18% for urban households and 9% for rural households. Consumption by all users other than data centers, including residential and other business customers, went up by just 2% over the same period.
The figures represent the latest phase in what's been a continuous rise. The CSO's quarterly tracking from 2015 to 2025 shows that data center electricity consumption grew from 291 GWh in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,991 GWh in the fourth quarter of last year.
Total metered electricity consumption rose 34% during the period, the officials noted.
"Newly compiled quarterly figures spanning 2015 to 2025 highlight a substantial increase in metered electricity consumption by data centers," said Dr Grzegorz Głaczyński, statistician in the Climate and Energy Division.
"Data center 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."
Ireland is a data center haven
Despite its size, Ireland currently has more than 80 data centers, mostly in the Greater Dublin Area.
In 2021, the country introduced an effective moratorium on the building of new data center connections to the electricity grid, which remained in force until late last year.
Developers were required to either generate their own electricity on site, or relocate to regions outside the Greater Dublin Area.
Even during the moratorium, data center electricity consumption continued to rise steadily, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicting two years ago that it would represent a third of the country's electricity consumption by this year.
Now, under a new Large Energy Users (LEU) Connection Policy finalized late last year, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) requires new data centers to meet at least 80% of their energy demand from renewable sources.
This requires large data center developers to provide 100% on-site, flexible power generation, with at least 80% of annual electricity to be sourced from new, unsubsidized renewable projects within their first six years.
At the same time, a new Large Energy User Action Plan (LEAP) was introduced to encourage investment in energy intensive sectors such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, precision engineering, and hyperscale data centers.
The plan calls for data centers to be sited in green energy parks and co-located with renewable energy sources, including offshore wind.
It also allows developments outside these locations, however, in some cases until beyond 2030, in line with existing planning arrangements. One such area is Dublin, which has raised concerns among opposition parties.
These plans were subject to a fierce cross-party pushback last year, as ITPro reported at the time, largely due to concerns about the impact on local communities and the environment.
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