IRENA Chief Says Renewables Can Power Data Centres as Demand Outruns Tripling Target

"We can afford the demand coming from the data centres, and renewables is the right choice," La Camera told the Emirates News Agency (WAM) on the sidelines of ADIPEC 2026 in Abu Dhabi.

He said energy demand "is increasing more than expected and will continue to increase". This affects the global goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030. The world is "very close" to that target, he said, but because demand is growing faster, "the tripling could be not sufficient, and we have to go beyond it."

La Camera also said recent geopolitical crises had shown the value of renewables. "The countries that invested more in renewables in the past have been the countries that suffered less from what happened," he said, adding that a decentralised system based on renewables gives stronger guarantees of energy security.

IRENA's World Energy Transition Outlook 2026, published in October, projects that electricity's share of global final energy use will rise from around 23 per cent today to 35 per cent by 2035 and to more than 50 per cent by 2050. The report finds that renewable costs keep falling and capacity additions keep setting records, but that progress is still too slow and uneven. It also identifies AI and large data centres as a major new source of electricity demand that puts added strain on grids, storage and dispatchable low-carbon generation.

La Camera said AI also offers the energy industry "all the potential for making the grids work better and for decreasing the energy demand in the industrial sector."

The comments add to a debate at ADIPEC this week about how the Gulf will power its expanding data centre capacity. Mitsubishi Power told the event that UAE electricity use could rise more than 75 per cent by 2033, and that solar needs backup generation to serve data centres.