Cabinet unwilling to put cap on data centres as energy consumption rises

Kenneth Fox

The Government says it wants to work with data centres to reduce their reliance on the national grid, according to the Minister for the Environment.

It comes as CSO data shows a 400 per cent increase in energy demand from data centres since 2015.

The Government believes they are an essential part of driving economic growth through the tech sector.

They are set to resist calls from the Opposition to halt data centre growth despite a 31 per cent increase in electricity consumption by the centres.

As The Irish Times report, The Social Democrats and People Before Profit have called on the Government to implement a moratorium on data centre expansion, as well as new oversight of the sector.

However, Cabinet Ministers have rejected these calls and said what is needed instead is a greater shift towards making data centres more efficient.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney indicated that the focus will not be on reducing the number of data centres but in powering them differently.

“It is important to say that there is no technology-based economic growth without data centres.

“We clearly have some challenges over the next two to three years in terms of the energy demand. But the medium-term vision for the Irish economy under this Government is a tech-based economy, full of innovation and growth, with high-quality, high paying jobs.

"To do that, you have to manage data and that involves data storage and data centres"

Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan said the Government the will “work with” data centres but that they will be expected to live within their overarching carbon budgets.

“The data centres are a really important and beneficial sector for our country.

"We have a huge advantage by having them here in terms of the digital industries that are based here that come with it. But they know, and they agree, that they are on decarbonisation plans.

Minister Ryan said they can deliver the clean electricity that will give them a sustainable future but they cannot break the climate budget in the meantime.

"We do have to make sure that they fit within it rather than blowing it," he said.