Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 February 2023
139. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he is satisfied that a new data centre (details supplied) in Ireland will not have any adverse issues in electric supply for domestic households; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9219/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn 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.
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.
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. As part of the Climate Action Plan there is a commitment to review the current gas and electricity connection policies for new Large Energy Users.
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) currently has a programme of actions underway to ensure the security of our electricity supply over the coming winters. This programme of actions contains a number of both demand and supply-side mitigation measures to address any potential shortfall. The actions include: procurement of new, enduring capacity through a number of capacity auctions; procuring additional temporary generation; extending the availability of existing generation capacity; and improved demand-side measures.
