Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 January 2023
56. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the sector to which the emissions from the backup generation of data centres will be allocated for the purposes of carbon budgeting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63177/22]
View answer57. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the total generation capacity for use by data centres in the event that they cannot access the grid; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63178/22]
View answer122. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the steps he will take to ensure confirmed data centre connections will not lock in higher gas demand and increase emissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1675/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 56, 57 and 122 together.
In July of 2022, the Government published a new statement on the role of data centres in Ireland’s enterprise strategy. The statement addresses sustainable data centre development to align with Ireland’s renewable energy targets, security of supply, sectoral green house gas emissions, and climate priorities. The goal of this policy is to ensure the positive benefits for sustainability are maximised and that digital technologies are used in a sustainable manner to ensure the energy and circular economy challenges from digitalisation are aligned with our climate objectives. My Department is working regularly across relevant agencies and government departments to support the effective implementation of this policy.
The recently published Climate Action Plan 2023 sets out a plan to implement the carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings along with a roadmap for taking decisive action to halve our emissions by 2030 and reach net zero no later than 2050, as was committed to in the Programme for Government. The plan sets out measures and actions to ensure electricity demand is managed in line with our climate objectives. Flexible and decarbonised demand from large energy users, such as data centres, is critical to protecting security of supply and ensuring consistency with the binding carbon budgets. This work will include a review into the current gas connection policies for new Large Energy Users.
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) published on 23 November 2021 the “CRU Direction to the System Operators related to Data Centre grid connection processing” (CRU/21/124). This decision requires data centre connections to have on-site generation (and/or battery storage) that is sufficient to meet their own demand and, to assist in full decarbonisation of the power system; this generation should also be capable of running on renewably sourced fuels (such as renewable gas or hydrogen) when supplies become more readily available.
The back-up generation of individual data centres is not assessed by the Department. The use of back-up generating units is subject to planning and environmental licensing on a site by site basis. However, the EPA do publish licence information and have a register of Medium Combustion Plant information on their website at: www.epa.ie/mcp/. The emissions generated from on-site power generation will apply to the industry sector for the purposes of carbon budgeting.
