Opinion: Just how many data centres will be enough? What is Ireland's limit? And who determines who gets priority in an energy supply crisis?
CAN IRELAND CONTINUE to roll out the red carpet for data centres while we struggle to meet our climate action targets and worry about the certainty of energy supply?
Meanwhile, households reduced their electricity use by 9%. This drop has been attributed to the post-Covid gradual return to the office, as well as consumers’ efforts to bring down skyrocketing energy bills. However, as high demand is a key driver of energy costs, soaring consumption by data centres is pushing up the price of electricity for all of us.
Responsibility for meeting our climate action targets should not fall on individual domestic customers while the Government turns a blind eye to voracious electricity consumption by data centres. A single entity – possibly a strengthened Commission for Regulation of Utilities – should manage this process. As things stand, each Government department, State body or local authority deals with separate components and, unbelievably, the CRU does not even have a list or register of data centres.
Despite this, there is no appetite within Government for a cap on data centres. Instead, we have received platitudes from ministers about making them more efficient or vague suggestions about powering them differently. But how many will be enough? What is our limit? And who determines who gets priority in an energy supply crisis? In the push for Ireland to become the data centre capital of the world, the IDA has succeeded in enticing some of the biggest global tech companies to set up here. The approach has undoubtedly sustained tens of thousands of jobs and led to bumper corporation tax receipts.
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