Study on the electricity demand and carbon footprint of ICT in Germany

© Fraunhofer IZM
Development of ICT electricity demand in Germany from 2010 to 2036

Subject and objectives of the study

The current study – status as of June 2025 – models the environmental impacts of the production and use of ICT over a period from 2010 to 2036. The energy and resource requirements for the manufacture of ICT used in Germany are calculated as a carbon footprint, reflecting the global supply chain. For the energy-intensive usage phase, both the electricity demand and the carbon footprint are quantified depending on the annually changing energy mix.

The data model developed by Fraunhofer IZM for quantifying the environmental impact of ICT covers key application areas and product categories, including ICT in households, at work, in public spaces, in data centers, and in telecommunications networks. Due to limited public data, ICT used in industrial production, agriculture, logistics, mobility, and transportation, as well as in the areas of energy and building control, could not be modeled.

Rising energy demand and carbon footprint in the use of ICT

The total annual electricity demand of ICT in Germany has grown from around 46.5 TWh in 2015 to 54.4 TWh in 2025. The modeled forecast shows a further increase to around 75.5 TWh in 2035. Data centers are the primary contributors to this increase.

The share of data centers in the total electricity demand of ICT has been growing significantly for several years. In 2015, data center electricity demand was still 14.1 TWh, which corresponded to a 30% share of total ICT-related electricity consumption. By 2025, electricity demand will have increased to 25.9 TWh per year, accounting for 47.6% of total ICT electricity consumption. The forecast for 2035 shows a further increase to 41.3 TWh, which would correspond to 54.7% of total ICT electricity demand. This makes data centers the largest driver of ICT electricity demand in Germany.

The cloud-based demand for data processing, storage, and transmission is increasing with advancing digitalization. Virtual worlds and artificial intelligence are keeping the increase in data volume constant. And even though existing IT systems are being better utilized, cooling and power supply infrastructures are being optimized, and technical progress in the fields of microelectronics and photonics is continuing, the trend can no longer be offset as it was in the past, and the power requirements of data centers will therefore increase significantly in the medium term.

ICT in households represents the second largest area of application in terms of electricity consumption. This category comprises 36 product groups, including smartphones, personal computers (PCs), televisions, and home routers. In 2015, ICT in households accounted for 22.2 TWh, or just under 47.7% of total ICT electricity demand.

These products underwent significant technical improvements during the same period, which are also linked to consistent European legal requirements for maximum power consumption. As a result, electricity demand fell significantly in the following years and will reach 17.1 TWh in 2025, corresponding to a share of only 31.4%.

In the medium term, however, the electricity demand of ICT in households will rise again. This trend is due in particular to the significant power consumption of large televisions and network technology in the home environment. A value of 21.8 TWh is forecast for 2035, which corresponds to a constant share of 28.9%.

The areas of application for ICT in the workplace and in public spaces have remained largely constant since 2015, at an average of 7 TWh and 0.5 TWh respectively, and are also expected to show only minor changes in the forecast up to 2035.

There is a certain degree of uncertainty in both forecasts, as public data used to determine the current situation appears to be somewhat contradictory. The declining sales figures suggest that devices are now being used for several years longer than they were ten years ago. A reasonable assumption in this context is that the functional and technological maturity of PCs, displays, and communication technology is contributing to their longer service life.

The electricity demand of telecommunications networks has been rising slightly for years. In recent years, there has been a significant increase from around 2.7 TWh in 2015 (if the analog/ISDN network that still existed at that time is included, the figure would be around 3.5 TWh) to 4.8 TWh in 2025. The forecast predicts only a slight further increase to 6.0 TWh in 2035 in the medium term.

The expansion of mobile communications networks and the switch to new mobile communications standards have been the drivers of growing electricity demand in recent years. However, more modern technologies and system architectures generally improve energy efficiency. As a result, despite the increasing volume of data transmitted via the networks, electricity demand is likely to increase only moderately in the coming years as the networks are continuously modernized.

© Fraunhofer IZM
Comparison of greenhouse gas emissions from scenarios 1, 2, and 3, broken down by application areas

Forecast of the manufacturing and usage-related carbon footprint of ICT in three scenarios

This study uses three scenarios for the development of the national electricity mix to map the carbon footprint of ICT's usage-related electricity demand in the coming years. Due to uncertainties in the development of specific greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity mix, different scenarios are used to forecast the climate impact of rising electricity demand. Despite the ongoing expansion of wind and solar power generation capacities, the development of the GHG value is also subject to other influencing factors, such as actual electricity consumption in the German power grid, annual weather conditions, outages, and the maintenance intensity of the annexes.

The following three assumptions regarding the development of the energy mix are made for the carbon footprint calculation:

Scenario 1: Stagnating development of the German electricity mix from 372 gCO2e/kWh (2024) to 337 gCO2e/kWh (2030).
Scenario 2: Continuous energy transition and achievement of the German government's climate protection target with a gradual reduction of the electricity mix from 372 gCO2e/kWh (2024) to 280 gCO2e/kWh (2030)
Scenario 3: Consistent expansion of renewable energies with a gradual reduction in the electricity mix from 372 gCO2e/kWh (2024) to 142 gCO2e/kWh (2030)

The carbon footprint of ICT manufacturing

The results of the forecast for manufacturing-related emissions reveal some interesting trends. ICT devices coming onto the market in 2025 will generate a carbon footprint of around 11.2 million tons of CO2e during manufacturing, compared with just 9.3 million tons of CO2e in 2015. Looking at total GHG emissions from manufacturing and use, manufacturing accounts for around 33% in 2025. The forecast expects a further increase to around 15.0 million tons of CO2e in 2035, which means that the share of manufacturing will continue to rise in principle. This development is remarkable, as the number of devices in use will hardly change over this period, from 1.1 billion units in 2015 to 1.2 billion units in 2025.

The breakdown shows that the manufacture of the many millions of end devices used in households is by far the largest source of manufacturing-related emissions. In 2015, this accounted for around 80% of the total, at 7.6 million tonnes of CO2e. By 2025, GHG emissions will have risen slightly to 7.8 million tonnes of CO2e, but their share will have fallen to 70%. During this period, manufacturing-related emissions from data centers saw strong growth, rising from 0.3 million tons of CO2e in 2015 to 1.2 tons of CO2e in 2025. The ICT sector in the workplace also recorded an increase from 1.3 million tons of CO2e to 2.0 million tons of CO2e in 2025. A key driver of this development is the manufacture of work and fixed storage systems and other semiconductor components.

These trends are expected to continue in the future. For example, manufacturing-related emissions for the entire ICT sector are forecast to reach around 15.0 million tons of CO2e in 2035. The model shows a significant increase for end devices in households, which will peak at 9.3 tons of CO2e in 2035. In addition to smartphones, notebooks, and other computers with extensive storage capacities, the manufacture of core wearables will also become statistically relevant. Furthermore, the ever-increasing sizes of televisions and monitors are reflected in the environmental balance sheet. However, the most significant increase in manufacturing will be recorded by data centers, which will reach 3.5 tons of CO2e in 2035. Here, too, the increase is largely attributable to the use of semiconductor-based solid-state drives (SSDs). It should also be noted that the model assumes a longer service life for computer and storage systems, which mitigates the increase in emissions.

German study available for download

IKT Study - (DE) [ PDF 3.59 MB ]