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Check out the latest forecast data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) to see how the growing demand for datacentres is impacting energy usage levels in different countries.
By
Caroline Donnelly,
Senior Editor, UK
Published: 25 Jan 2024 17:00
According to a 170-page report by the IEA, Ireland is projected to use one-third of its energy to power datacentres by 2026, with a 65% increase expected in the number of server farms.
The report reveals that there are currently 82 operational datacentres in Ireland, with 14 under construction and 40 approved for development, resulting in a significant surge in energy demand from the sector.
As of 2022, electricity demand from datacentres in Ireland was 5.3 TWh, making up 17% of the total electricity consumed by the country. If this pace continues, the sector could potentially double its electricity consumption by 2026, accounting for a 32% share of Ireland’s total electricity demand, largely driven by the rising penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the market.
The report also raises concerns about the potential impact on the country’s electricity system due to its growing reliance on datacentres for power consumption.
It goes on to predict that global electricity consumption from datacentres, AI, and cryptocurrency workloads is set to double by 2026. As of now, there are an estimated 8,000 datacentres worldwide, with about a third of them located in the US, 10% in China, and 16% across Europe.
In addition, Europe is currently home to approximately 1,240 datacentres, which collectively consumed around 100 TWh of power in 2022, constituting almost 4% of the European Union’s (EU’s) total electricity demand.
The report projects that energy consumption by the datacentre sector in the EU will reach nearly 150 TWh by 2026, largely driven by the significant number of planned and future datacentre deployments in major financial centers.
The datacentre sector will likely face intensified regulatory intervention and more substantial pressure to optimize the energy efficiency of its facilities to tackle this increase in energy consumption, the report adds.
Efforts to address this might involve the implementation of more energy-efficient cooling mechanisms in datacentres.