Ireland Data Centres Used 23 Percent Of Metered Electricity In 2025
Central Statistics Office figures recorded Ireland data centres at 23 percent of metered electricity use in 2025, even as Dublin-area grid restrictions remained in place for most of the year.
Ireland’s data centres consumed 23 percent of the country’s metered electricity in 2025, more than urban households’ 18 percent share, even as most new data-centre grid connections around Dublin remained effectively restricted for much of the year, according to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) cited by The Register.
Data-centre consumption rose 10 percent, from 6,973 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2024 to 7,663 GWh in 2025.
All other customers combined used 2 percent more electricity over the same period.
The sector’s share of metered consumption has climbed steadily: 20 percent in 2023, 14 percent in 2021 and just 5 percent in 2015.
Data centres also consumed more than twice the rural-household share of 9 percent.
“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,” said Grzegorz Głaczyński, a statistician in the CSO’s Climate and Energy Division.
Dublin restrictions and tougher connection rules
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) imposed an effective moratorium on connecting most new server farms to the electricity grid in the Dublin area, where much of Ireland’s data-centre activity is concentrated.
The restriction was lifted in December 2025, but data-centre electricity use had already risen by a tenth during the year.
The revised rules add a capacity requirement for large connections.
Operators seeking more than 10 megawatts (MW) of grid capacity must provide generators or battery systems capable of supplying the same amount of power.
They must also feed electricity back into the national grid when required.
Microsoft and Digital Realty have already pioneered that kind of support system.
Under the Irish rules, backup generation and storage become part of the grid-connection test as well as a resilience measure for individual facilities.
Grid pressure and public opposition
Ireland has more than 80 data centres for a population of just over 5 million people, and protests have emerged as the facilities’ electricity demand has expanded.
At one point, there were fears that data centres could eventually consume as much as a third of the country’s electricity.
The pressure has parallels in the United States, where the Trump administration has asked technology companies to commit that expanding data-centre estates will not raise energy bills or drain local water supplies.
The CSO figures do not identify individual operators’ facility-level electricity demand, pending connection requests, project-by-project battery capacity or the amount of power each data centre could return to Ireland’s grid.
