The 45 or so data centres located in the Netherlands accounted for 4.6% of the country’s total energy use last year, national statistics agency CBS said on Monday.

The 5,100 GWh of electricity used by data centres is the equivalent of nearly two million households, the CBS said.

There are some 200 data centres in the Netherlands, most of which are located around Amsterdam, but some 75% of them are attached to universities, hospitals and industry and are used for in-house data processing. They are not included in this research.

In total, electricity usage by commercial data centres providing cloud and other services has increased by 37% since 2021, the CBS said.

The Dutch electricity grid has been struggling to cope with demand in recent years, with hundreds of businesses waiting for a new connection because of the shortage of capacity.