How Much Electricity Do Australia's Data Centres Use?

By Archie Maclean · 3 November 2026

Those are the official figures. But many of the numbers in the news about data centres measure something different, and mixing them up leads to claims that are either alarming or dismissive. This guide explains what each figure means and where it comes from.

How much electricity do Australian data centres use today?

According to AEMO's 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO), data centres connected to the NEM used about 5 TWh in the 2025–26 financial year. The NEM covers Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. It does not include Western Australia or the Northern Territory.

To put 5 TWh in perspective: spread evenly across a year, it equals about 570 megawatts (MW) of continuous demand.

The use is heavily concentrated. In 2025–26, New South Wales accounted for about 66% of data centre consumption and Victoria about 30%. South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania together made up the remaining 4% or so.

How much will data centres use by 2035?

AEMO's central forecast, the Step Change scenario, has data centre use reaching about 34 TWh a year by 2035–36. That is roughly seven times today's level. On the way, AEMO expects data centres to reach about 7.8% of NEM consumption by 2029–30 and about 13% by 2035–36, after which growth is expected to slow.

If 34 TWh were drawn evenly across the year, it would equal about 3,900 MW of continuous demand.

How has the forecast changed?

The forecast rose sharply in a single year. In its 2025 ESOO, AEMO forecast 21.4 TWh by 2034–35. In 2026 it forecast about 34 TWh for 2035–36, one year further out.

AEMO's 2026 forecast draws on 225 projects in development, with a combined capacity of about 67 gigawatts (GW). It forecasts data centres separately from other large loads, combining project information from developers and network businesses with an economic outlook for digital transformation and AI adoption.

AEMO describes data centre growth as one of the most significant sources of both forecast growth and uncertainty.

Where are Australia's data centres being built?

Most of the growth is expected in New South Wales and Victoria.

Grid Desk's facility registry, compiled from RenewMap's public project pages, lists 22 major facilities in those two states, with a combined announced capacity of about 7,671 MW. Of that, about 1,196 MW is listed as operating, 2,675 MW as under construction, and 3,800 MW as proposed across just two very large sites.

Does 67 GW of planned data centres mean 67 GW of demand?

No. Announced capacity is a ceiling, not a meter reading.

Compare the numbers. The pipeline adds up to about 67 GW, yet AEMO's 2035–36 forecast works out to about 3.9 GW of average demand, under 6% of the pipeline. The gap has three causes:

• Many projects never get built. AEMO found that 36% of the projects in development in its 2025 forecast were later cancelled.
• Built sites fill up slowly. Operators told AEMO that new facilities can take 5 to 10 years to reach their full load.
• Sites rarely draw their full connection. In 2025–26, data centres used on average about 27% of their grid connection capacity. AEMO projects mature sites will use about 50%.

So when you read that a region has gigawatts of data centres "coming", ask how many are built, how full they are, and what share of their connection they use.

What are the three kinds of data centre number?

Almost every data centre energy figure falls into one of three kinds. Each is useful, but each answers a different question.

When a figure is quoted without its kind, treat it with caution. Adding announced megawatts together and calling the total "demand" is the classic error.

Why can't anyone measure data centre electricity use directly?

Australia's public market data does not separate data centres from other customers. AEMO publishes demand for each region every five minutes, but a data centre's load is mixed in with homes, offices and industry. There is no general requirement for operators to publish their consumption. Rules proposed in 2026 would require large data centres to register as market participants, which the Australian Energy Market Commission says would give AEMO better visibility of large loads.

There is one useful clue. Unlike households, a data centre draws almost the same power day and night, every day of the week. If you take regional demand and remove the parts explained by time of day, weekends, temperature and rooftop solar, what remains includes a flat layer. That layer should grow as data centres connect.

I built an open-source tool, Grid Desk, that tracks this "flat baseline" from live AEMO data. The method has a clear limit: any other load that runs around the clock moves the baseline too. So it gives an upper bound on data centre growth, never a measurement of it.

How does Australia compare with the rest of the world?

Australia is following a global trend, from a smaller base. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that worldwide data centre electricity demand will more than double by 2030, to about 945 TWh a year. That is roughly as much electricity as Japan uses today. The IEA expects demand from AI-optimised data centres to more than quadruple over the same period.

In the United States, the IEA expects data centres to account for almost half of all electricity demand growth to 2030.

What would make data centre energy numbers more reliable?

Better information would help planners, investors, communities and the industry itself. Three practical steps would make the biggest difference:

1. Report data centre consumption as its own category. If AEMO or the network businesses published total data centre use by region, even quarterly, the public debate could move from estimates to measurement.
2. Have operators disclose actual use alongside capacity. Annual energy use per site would show how full facilities really run.
3. Label every number. Journalists, analysts and companies can say whether a figure is published, announced or estimated.

Sources

• AEMO, 2026 ESOO: data centre forecasting overview: current use, forecasts, regional split, pipeline, cancellations and connection utilisation.
• iTnews, AEMO predicts seven-fold rise in data centre power use over next decade: the 2025 forecast, maturity utilisation and reliability testing.
• IEA, Energy and AI (2025), as reported by Hydrocarbon Engineering: global projections.
• PV Tech, Australia's data centre energy rules take shape: proposed registration and connection rules for large data centres (2026).
• RenewMap project registries for NSW and Victoria: announced capacity by facility, as compiled in Grid Desk's registry on 17 October 2026.
• Grid Desk: live NEM data and the flat-baseline method.

Conversions from TWh a year to average MW are the author's own arithmetic (1 TWh ÷ 8,760 hours ≈ 114 MW).