Data centre in Dublin uses as much power as 200,000 homes

A data centre in Dublin uses the equivalent amount of power needed for 200,000 homes, an internal Government document shows.

The paper, released to Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Bolan and seen by the Irish Times, compared electricity demand connected to the Castlebaggot substation with that of a nearby pharmaceutical plant.

While the pharma plant requires 10 megawatts of power and employs around 2,000 people, the data centre has a “smaller people footprint but a power requirement 10 times greater".

The Castlebaggot substation was intended to relieve pressure on the grid and support housing and industrial growth, according to the Irish Times. However, officials noted that the “sheer volume and energy density” of data centres in the area “completely consumed the capacity of the new reinforcement”.

Although the Department of Energy has said a repeat of the west Dublin scenario is now effectively ruled out, the document shows the substation was left with no remaining capacity to support major housing expansion or other large enterprises in the area.

This is not the first time the substation has been impacted by data centres. Last year, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) said the substation’s capacity was “almost entirely used by data centres applications”.

A Department for Energy spokesperson told the Irish Times that the scenario has arisen due to a “historically high concentration” of data-centre applications. However, under recent CRU decisions, he said that constrained electricity capacity must be considered as a criterion when assessing data-centre connections.

This “effectively rules out the type of scenario presented in that specific historic case study arising at present”, he said.