French private investment firm Ardian will buy Irish energy utility Energia Group from infrastructure investor I Squared Capital, as power demand is set to surge with Ireland’s growing digital economy and data centers.
Energia “is well positioned to meet Ireland’s increasing demand for secure, low-carbon electricity to sustainably power the country’s growing digital economy,” Ardian said on Monday, announcing the deal.
The transaction, expected to be completed in the first half of 2026, values Energia Group at about $2.9 billion (2.5 billion euros), according to the Financial Times.
The Irish energy utility has entered into a strategic partnership with a global technology partner for the development of a 165-MW data center in Dublin and its corresponding supply of renewable energy, said Ardian, which joins the global drive of private equity securing investments in power utilities.
Energia operates across the entire energy value chain in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, serving almost 900,000 homes and businesses. Energia supplies about 17% of the island of Ireland’s total electricity requirements and 20% of its total wind power.
“Energia is at the forefront of the convergence between energy utilities and digital infrastructure. The company’s pioneering approach to combining hyperscale data center development with new renewable energy generation, will unlock significant opportunities for growth in Ireland,” said William Briggs, Managing Director at Ardian.
In a sign that investment firms are eyeing increased exposure to the AI boom, BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners is reportedly negotiating the acquisition of power utility AES in a deal that could be worth $38 billion. That would make the tie-up one of the largest in history involving a public power utility in the United States.
Global electricity demand from data centers is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report earlier this year. AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from AI-optimized data centers projected to more than quadruple by 2030, the agency noted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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