Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
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?
It’s a question that has certainly concentrated minds since it emerged recently that data centres around the country now consume the same amount of electricity as the total number of urban dwellings, or almost twice that of all rural homes combined.
The figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) should serve as an urgent wake-up call for the Government. They show that the percentage of metered electricity consumed by data centres rose from 5% in 2015 to 18% in 2022. Electricity consumption by data centres was up by 31% between 2021 and 2022. The increase since 2015 was a staggering 400%.
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.
The Government has dismissed previous warnings that a surge in electricity consumption by data centres could rise to 30% by 2030. Worryingly, the latest CSO statistics indicate that we are on course to meet or even exceed that figure.
When it comes to reducing our energy consumption, individual households are again being asked to do all the heavy lifting.
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.
On the same day that the CSO figures were released, the fragility of Ireland’s energy supply was also laid bare. EirGrid issued its first amber warning of the year due to low levels of wind power being generated in the electricity system. Reduced levels of solar power and outages at several generators were also blamed for the alert. We can expect to see further warnings issued when winter approaches and the demand for electricity rises.
Like many things in Ireland, it is lack of regulation and oversight that lie at the heart of the problem. While we recognise that data centres are needed in our growing economy to cater for the tech environment we have created, they must be efficient, properly managed and regulated – something that is not happening at the moment.
A single entity – possibly a strengthened Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) – 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.
This was evident when the CSO was forced to collect information on data centres using a variety of methods, including internet searches and an examination of customers in business parks with high annual electricity consumption.
The Social Democrats believe there should be a pause on further data centre connections until a strategic analysis has been carried out by the Government to ensure that Ireland can cope with the pressures we are seeing on energy demand. We also need clear definitions as to what constitutes a data centre and a full analysis of their impact on our climate change targets.
We are already fighting an uphill battle in this area. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned that Ireland is on course to miss its 2030 climate targets by a considerable distance. Even if all the measures in the Climate Action Plan are implemented, the agency predicts that the Government will only achieve a 29% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade – well short of the legally binding target of 51%.
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.
We are expected to believe that we have capacity for more data centres while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gasses – yet there is no detail as to how we will square that particular circle.
There has been a de facto moratorium on data centres in the wider Dublin area since 2022, but we know there are several being constructed around the country and others with planning permission that don’t yet have grid access.
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. But in its eagerness to please, the Government has over-promised something it ultimately cannot deliver on – security of supply. This is something that international companies have already expressed concern about. It will be difficult to incentivise further foreign direct investment if we are unable to keep the lights on.
The lack of transparency surrounding the operation of data centres is troubling. In a recent parliamentary question, I asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications to outline how information on the collation of data centre energy consumption is used. In his response, Minister Eamon Ryan cited EU law, saying member states have an obligation to preserve the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information. As such, he said that specific detailed information on energy usage for a particular sector cannot be disclosed. This is on top of the Department of Enterprise and Employment not being able to provide details of the number of jobs directly linked to data centres.
Not having strategic oversight of data centres is inexcusable. Failure to plan for their future growth will come back to haunt us if we don’t have an honest discussion now about how many more we can take.
Jennifer Whitmore is a Social Democrats TD for Wicklow and party spokesperson on energy, climate action and biodiversity.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
You could say…they cleaned up.
(Badumm-tishhh)
I don’t get it
That is the best idea ever
You had 32 million reasons to think it up.
Why didn’t I think of that.
Immense amount of hard work from Jules and the rest of the founding team to make this happen. This company nearly folded not so long ago and they had to re-name, re-brand and re-focus to become a success. Anyone can have a great idea but the dedication and brains to make it work don’t often mix. Fair play and here’s to continued success!
Fair play to her
could have used something like this back in my “free gaf” days.
oh well, twas’ my parent’s loss really.
great advert…. I use handy for my cleaners. It’s very hit and miss whether you get a good one though
Clean up after yourself so.
If you hire a cleaner for 4 hours, they charge you 48 €. However they keep 8€ (for the credit card processing, and usage of the site), the cleaner only gets 40€ and as they are contractors they have to take care of the taxing etc.
Good business model for them, not so good for their cleaners.
So they should do it for free?
The contractors don’t have to use the website if they don’t want to.
Not free, but they charge 16.66% fee for essentially a billing and scheduling solution. Not even Hailo has that big of a fee (12.5%).
If you feel comfortable to have someone cleaning your house for less than a living wage, that is fine by me, but I intent to pay people a fair wage for their work. You might think different and contribute to the ever spiraling way down of wages.
Why not charge an amount that allows the cleaners a living wage for what is essentially hard work?
That can be done by either charging a reasonable fee or charging a higher amount per hour.
But it’s the business model they have and obviously the founders put a lot of work into it to make it a brand that helping thinks can benefit them and value as this price.
i do see your point Yggr , but the ever spirralling increases during the boom became unsustainable and some services became a complete joke , there were young lads sniffing coke on the nitelinks from the back of mobile phones braggin about how much cash they were pulling in as laborers on buiding sites in dublin – there are more sides to the story than trying to imply guilt for me not paying a ‘living wage to cleaners’ – have you thought that if the service was too expensive the numbers using it would drop so much it would just not succedd and there would be no business and fewer jobs – technology is opening up possibilities for new models for almost every sector , fair play to these people who managed to create a success in the cleaning sector – unsurprisingly there is the ususal irish begruggery doin the rounds no matter what you do. Addressing issues like the minimum wage and other social issues are a mtter for government policy to address not people who want to try create a successful business.
10.6 million each. Take the leftover 200,000 and put it all on red!
Do we have anything like this in Ireland though?
I mean all Ireland and not just Dublin like Hassle.
It rolls out gradually, there have been huge roadblocks and hills to overcome to just get it to Dublin. Hailo is actually a much lighter model that doesn’t vet or examine their drivers I’m sure.
My colleagues and I launched upChore a few months ago. We are in Dublin, launching in Waterford next week and expect to be in Belfast by January.
have your say