A recent report by Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) highlights the explosive growth of energy consumption in data centers. The electricity required by data center operators increased...
In context: Ireland has slowly become one of Europe's leading technology hubs. The island hosts dozens of giant data centers, and they require a substantial amount of energy to keep those bit streams flowing. by 20 percent between 2022 and 2023, and the total metered energy consumption equaled 21 percent of Ireland's capacity in 2023. Data centers now exceed the energy needs of both urban and rural households, which accounted for 18 percent and 10 percent of total metered electricity consumption, respectively. In 2023, the CSO recorded a truly unprecedented increase in power required by Ireland's data centers, rising from 290 gigawatt hours in 2015 to 1,661 gigawatt hours, a…