In July 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.
In addition, 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 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 recently published Climate Action Plan 2023 (CAP23) 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.
CAP23 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 Ireland’s security of supply and ensuring consistency with the binding carbon budgets.
Within this broader context, I understand that the delivery of a Demand Side Strategy, as described in CAP23, is being developed by the CRU and that there are a number of workstreams progressing on this Strategy within CRU.
I also understand that CRU are currently developing a new Connections Policy for Large Energy Users, which is another CAP23 commitment.
CRU will be engaging with stakeholders on these two policies shortly and I would urge all interested parties to make submissions to the consultation processes.
My Department is also engaging regularly with CRU on these important matters.
