Europe’s data center power consumption is expected to almost triple by 2030 and will require a surge in electricity—supply mostly from low-carbon sources coupled with grid infrastructure upgrades, McKinsey has reported. According to the global business management consultant, total IT load demand for data centers in the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and Britain will hit 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, up from 10 GW today.
Europe’s data centers are expected to account for ~5% of the continent’s total consumption over the next six years compared to around 2% today. McKinsey estimates that Europe will require $250-300 billion in data center infrastructure investment, excluding power generation capacity.
“Meeting (the rise in electricity) demand will require an extensive increase in electricity supply; a notable shift for Europe, where aggregate power demand has remained relatively stagnant since 2007,” the McKinsey report said.
But the surge in data center power consumption will not be confined to Europe alone. Last year, the power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies published a report titled “The Era of Flat Power Demand is Over,” which pointed out that United States grid planners–utilities and regional transmission operators (RTOs)–had nearly doubled growth projections in their five-year demand forecasts. For the first time in decades, demand for electricity in the U.S. is projected to grow by as much as 15% over the next decade, driven by the Artificial Intelligence (AI), clean energy, and cryptocurrencies boom.
AI, in particular, is expected to drive a lot of that surge in power demand. According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), data centers will gobble up as much as 9% of total electricity generated in the United States by the end of the decade, up from ~1.5% currently thanks to the rapid adoption of power-hungry technologies such as generative AI. For some perspective, last year, the U.S. industrial sector energy consumed 1.02 million GWh, good for 26% of U.S. electricity consumption.
Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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Publish date : 2024-10-24 11:30:00
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