Ireland's data centres consumed 23% of national electricity in 2025, a record share

Data centres in Ireland consumed 23% of the country’s total metered electricity in 2025, up from 22% a year earlier and just 5% in 2015, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said.

That share now tops what all of Ireland’s urban households use (18%) and is closing on the 28% drawn by every home in the country combined. Metered demand from data centres rose 10% year over year to 7,663 gigawatt-hours, and has climbed every year without exception since 2015, CSO statistician Grzegorz Glaczynski said.

The CSO’s own figures show data centre consumption nearly tripled between 2019 and 2025, from 2,490 GWh. More than 80 data centres now operate in Ireland, many clustered around Dublin to serve US cloud and AI operators.

The growth is straining a grid regulators have tried to protect. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) lifted a moratorium on new data centre grid connections around Dublin in December 2025, but now requires operators seeking 10 megawatts or more to provide their own backup generation or battery storage.

The CSO tracks only electricity pulled through the public grid, so the figures do not capture power generated on site. Even so, the trend is unbroken: data centre demand has not fallen in any year the agency has measured it.

Whether the new connection rules bend that curve, or simply push more generation behind the meter, will show up in next year’s release.