The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) was assigned responsibility for the regulation of the Irish electricity sector, following enactment of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 and subsequent legislation. CRU is an independent regulator, accountable to a committee of the Oireachtas and not the Minister.
On November 23rd 2021, following advice from EirGrid with regard to network constraints and security of supply, the CRU issued a direction on new assessment criteria for data centre connections, the “CRU Direction to the System Operators related to Data Centre grid connection processing” (CRU/21/124). These assessment criteria consider;
• The location of the data centre applicant with respect to whether they are within a constrained or unconstrained region of the electricity system.
• The ability of the data centre applicant to bring onsite dispatchable generation (and/or storage) equivalent to or greater than their demand, which meets appropriate availability and other technical requirements as may be specified by the relevant SO, in order to support security of supply.
• The ability of the data centre applicant to provide flexibility in their demand by reducing consumption when requested to do so by the relevant SO in times of system constraint through the use of dispatchable on-site generation (and/or storage) which meets appropriate availability and other technical requirements as may be specified by the relevant SO, in order to support security of supply.
• The ability of the data centre applicant to provide flexibility in their demand by reducing consumption when requested to do so by the relevant SO, in times of system constraint, in order to support security of supply.
The direction issued by CRU did not constitute a moratorium on new data centre connections, but rather introduced new assessment criteria for the System Operators to consider and apply in the processing of applications. To date EirGrid have identified regional constraints on the Electricity Transmission Grid in the Greater Dublin Region.
The Direction and its implementation are matters for the Commission of the Regulation of Utilities who are accountable to the Oireachtas and have a dedicated email address for Oireachtas members, which enables them raise questions on energy regulatory matters, such as the matter raised in this question, to CRU at oireachtas@cru.ie for timely direct reply.
