Data centres are causing a perfect storm - so why won't the Government do something?

Data centres are threatening our energy security, investment, jobs and climate action targets – so why won’t the Government do something about them?

They are used to stored digital data – every online transaction you conduct on your phone, every email you send and every Facebook ‘like’ is stored on massive servers in these industrial complexes.

Although they don’t provide much employment – between 30 and 50 direct jobs – their number has dramatically increased as our lives have increasingly moved online.

Ireland, despite our relatively small size, is now the biggest data centre hub in Europe.

The number has increased by 25% in the past year alone, with 70 now operational – and scores more planned in the future.

While data centres are a product of our 21st century society, the energy infrastructure they feed off is decidedly 20th century. Like vampires, they are sucking it dry.

The best-case scenario is they will consume 30% of our electricity supply by 2030. But, it could be much worse than that.

If all the data centres currently in the pipeline are connected to the grid, they could account for 70% of our electricity usage by the end of the decade.

unsustainable

Clearly, this is unsustainable. Our energy infrastructure is already creaking at the seams.

In the past year we have had 11 amber alerts – issued when electricity supply is almost at capacity – compared to just eight in the previous decade.

IDA Ireland warned earlier this year that amber alerts were “causing disquiet in the foreign direct investment community” and our energy supply crisis risked causing the country significant reputational damage.

The damage is already being done. Last month, it was reported Intel may not locate a new €80billion investment in Ireland because of their serious concerns about our dilapidated energy and water infrastructure.

This should hardly come as a surprise to the Government. At a very minimum, companies that locate here expect us to be able to keep the lights on.

Incredibly, the Government cannot make that commitment. This week, Environment Minister Eamon Ryan repeatedly refused to guarantee we would not have rolling blackouts this winter.

The best he could say was the electricity supply was “tight”.

What does that mean? Will people be able to heat their homes this winter or not?

Minister Ryan’s cavalier attitude to our escalating energy crisis is astonishing. The average data centre connected to our grid consumes equivalent electricity as a small city like Kilkenny. In the past four years alone, the extra demand from data centres has been equivalent to connecting 540,000 homes.

How many can our energy infrastructure sustain? And, are they even necessary to support jobs and data that are support the Irish economy?

We don’t know, because the Government has neglected to do any research. That is why, in the Dail this week, the Social Democrats introduced a motion calling for a moratorium on data centres.

We want a pause to conduct an analysis of the environmental, economic and energy implications of the current explosion. It was a reasonable, sensible motion – which the Government didn’t support.

Instead, their approach can best be described as ‘wing and a prayer’. They are hoping for the best, but not preparing for the worst. In 2019, the Irish Academy of Engineers published a report which stated we needed a €9billion investment in our energy infrastructure to cope with the projected demands of the centres. The Government has never commented on that figure – and has refused to provide its own.

We are now facing a perfect storm. An international shortage has led to record prices for natural gas, which will lead to increases in bills of €500 this winter.

Meanwhile, our national grid can barely sustain the level of demand.

Something has to give. Unless the Government pauses the development of data centres - and figures out the limits of our current energy infrastructure and the investment that’s required to future-proof it – we will lose our energy security and miss our climate action targets.