Electricity consumption by data centres rose from just 5 per cent in 2015 to 21 per cent last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
CSO figures show the energy consumed by the these centres elipsed that of urban households in 2023, which accounted for 18 per cent of total metered electricity consumption. Rural households accounted for 10 per cent.
Quarterly metered electricity consumption by data centres increased steadily from 290 Gigawatt hours in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,661 Gigawatt hours in the fourth quarter of 2023, a jump of 473 per cent, the agency said.
The findings come amid an increasingly heated debate about data centres and their energy demands and whether playing host to so many of them runs counter to the State’s climate policy.
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Used to house the computer storage systems, these centres are expected to account for 27 per cent of all electricity demand by 2028.
The CSO figures show large energy users, which include data centres, with “very high consumption” accounted for 30 per cent of total metered consumption in 2023.
The total metered electricity consumption by large energy users in 2023 was 9,102 Gigawatt hours which was a 16 per cent increase on 2022.
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