Data centers in Netherlands use as much power as 2 million homes

Data centers in the Netherlands are using increasingly more electricity. Last year, consumption rose to almost 5,100 gigawatt hours. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), this is equivalent to the power consumption of almost 2 million homes. Figures for this year are not yet available.

The electricity consumption of data centers has almost doubled in five years. Last year, data centers used almost 5 percent of all electricity in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has around 45 data centers that consume over 10 gigawatt hours. These are the largest centers. Their numbers haven’t changed much, but their total consumption has almost quadrupled in ten years, from almost 1,300 gigawatt hours to over 4,700 gigawatt hours. The electricity consumption of smaller locations, which remain below 10 gigawatt hours, is stable.

CBS only looked at centers where data storage is “the main activity,” such as the data centers of large tech companies like Google and Microsoft. Actual consumption could be even higher, because CBS did not include companies and institutions that store their own data to support their work. These include hospitals and universities.