Europe’s data center power demand could triple to about 35 gigawatts in 2030 from 10 GW now due to the rapid advancement of digitization and artificial intelligence, according to McKinsey.
The global consulting firm said on Wednesday that the demand for data center power is skyrocketing to meet the need for greater computing and connectivity in the latest technologies.
At the current adoption rate, Europe’s data center power consumption is expected to almost triple from 62 terawatt-hours today to over 150 TWh by 2030.
This increase will be one of the primary growth drivers for power demand in Europe, with data centers accounting for about 5 percent of total European consumption in the next six years from about 2 percent today.
“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.
Energy Tightrope
At present, data center growth in Europe is fueled by hyperscalers and colocation leases, with the former alone driving up to 70 percent of the anticipated demand by 2028.
Hyperscalers are cloud computing providers that offer a broad range of services and infrastructure at a massive scale, often leveraging their own data centers and proprietary technology.
Meeting this data center demand will require at least $250 billion to $300 billion in infrastructure investment, excluding power generation capacity, the report said.
It added that data center operations will likely shift to renewable resources as the global energy transition progresses and new policies emerge.
The European Commission has already adopted regulations to allow it to assess the sustainability of data centers within the EU. The recast Energy Efficiency Directive requires data center operators to report on key performance indicators to the European database starting in 2024.
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