Electricity demand is outrunning the grid, and the data is patchy

The finding comes from the Lighthouse Report, produced with Trouw and other European media. It lands in the middle of a spending wave that is already reshaping electricity networks. The researchers spent a year invoking freedom of information laws across Europe and got almost nothing. In the Netherlands, less than a quarter of larger data centres publish data on electricity and drinking water use, NL Times reported on 30 September.

The European Energy Efficiency Directive obliges data centres with at least 500 kilowatts of installed capacity to report energy and water consumption. It has been in force for three years. Few comply.

According to the Dutch Datacenter Association, there were 186 commercial data centres with a capacity of 500 kW or more in the Netherlands at the end of last year. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency, which collects the information for the EU, has data on only 104 of them. Public figures exist on the electricity usage of 44 centres and the water usage of 47. RVO told Trouw it holds more data on some centres but did not provide figures.

Statistics Netherlands says data centres used 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the Netherlands in 2024, or 4.6 percent of national consumption, a near doubling in five years. Grid operator TenneT projects that data centres will consume 10 to 15 percent of Dutch electricity by 2030. Data from RVO revealed this summer that Microsoft's largest data centre in the Netherlands alone accounts for 1 percent of national electricity consumption. Google, which operates two large data centres in the country, does not disclose this information.

Water use is estimated at about 0.1 percent of Dutch national consumption. Small, but the report notes that climate change is making conservative water usage more critical as droughts lengthen.

The supply side is being rebuilt at the same time

Investment is not waiting for the disclosure to improve. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump was expected to unveil roughly $200 billion in South Korean investments in the United States, including about $54 billion tied to the long-delayed Alaska LNG project, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. Seeking Alpha carried the report on 30 September. Shipbuilding, energy infrastructure and nuclear energy are targeted for substantial funding.

On the forecasting side, Microsoft Research published work on 30 September describing a machine learning pipeline that estimates space weather risk for 66,935 substations in the continental United States. The system combines solar wind observations, forecasts of the Auroral Electrojet and Disturbance Storm Time indices, local latitude, geology and ground conductivity. It detected nearly 80 percent of major space weather events during the evaluation period and can warn grid operators 30 to 60 minutes before a specific risk appears, according to Microsoft Research.

The context is a grid whose load is changing faster than its disclosure rules. In the UK, the government has set up Great British Grid, a publicly owned body intended to speed connections, according to GOV.UK. The Guardian examined what the plan might do to bills. Transport + Energy covered the launch, and FleetNews framed it around fleet electrification. The i Paper asked whether it could cut household energy costs. The Burnham Programme described it as public capital entering the electricity network.

Vehicle electrification is part of the same load story. CleanTechnica reported on 30 September that the US was at 5.9 percent BEV share in the first half of 2026, against 45 percent in China in August and 26 percent in Europe in July. On the same day, Electrek reported that Toyota dropped a 1,675 lb caravan onto its electric Hilux at Bentwaters airfield in Suffolk, recreating a 2003 Top Gear stunt, and the truck drove off. The Hilux BEV carries a 59.2 kWh battery and a WLTP range of up to 160 miles.

OilPrice.com asked on 30 September whether the world can reach 35 percent electrification by 2035, citing IRENA's call for grid investment to double to $1 trillion a year. The same site's markets ticker showed Brent crude at $102.3, up $4.28. High oil prices have historically helped the electrification case, though the causality runs in both directions.

WIRED and InsideEVs both covered the Range Rover Sport Electric on 29 September. Both put the battery at 118.5 kWh and the WLTP range at 374 to 378 miles, a small discrepancy that reflects different figures from the same launch. InsideEVs reported that the model is not coming to the US as a 2027 model, according to a company representative.

Asterisk Magazine published a long piece on 30 September arguing that the popular case for trades jobs over college is weaker than its advocates suggest. It is a useful reminder that the labour supply for grid construction is itself a contested variable.

What ties the week together is a mismatch. The demand forecasts are specific: 10 to 15 percent of Dutch electricity by 2030, 35 percent global electrification by 2035. The disclosure is not. Three years into a directive that requires reporting, most large European data centres still do not say how much power they draw.