Pringle: Urgent action needed as data centres continue to drain national grid
- Updated: 26th July 2024
Independent TD for Donegal, Thomas Pringle, said urgent action is needed to address data centres’ growing drain on the country’s electrical grid, which is challenging Ireland’s climate action goals.
Deputy Pringle said: “New figures show that data centres consumed 21% of all metered electricity from the national grid in 2023, with data centres’ metered electricity consumption up a shocking 473% from 2015 to 2023.
“By comparison, the same figures showed that in 2023, rural households accounted for 10% of metered electricity consumption.
“This is not sustainable. A report from the Oireachtas Library and Research Service said the key issue is that Ireland’s climate action goals centre on the decarbonisation of our energy. However, they say the rate of growth of the data centre sector’s power demand is far surpassing the speed of renewable electricity power generation coming onstream.
“Ireland has 82 data centres, with more on the way. The report cites a 2024 survey that ranked Dublin’s data centres market 16th globally when describing energy demand, and in the top five hubs in Europe, coming behind London and Amsterdam but ahead of Paris and Frankfurt in terms of power load.
“How does this make sense? We have heard that a single large data centre would use as much electricity as a city like Kilkenny.
“Government choices have brought us to this place.
“Last year, in a Dáil debate on emergency electricity generation, I called on the Minister to be honest with the public about why the legislation was needed. I said the fact that Government was allowing and facilitating the growth in the number of data centres was completely unacceptable because of their enormous drain on our resources and the pressure they put on our country’s energy infrastructure.
“Climate change is the defining issue of our time. Government must make the decision to get serious about our climate goals, and pursue a just transition that protects people’s livelihoods and homes and well-being as we work to combat climate change and transition towards sustainability.”
