As part of our Climate Action Hub, an ongoing Climate | Focus series of specialised research papers, blogs and commentaries intends to provoke thought and debate in this area of vital national interest.
The latest in the series is research from the Library & Research Service describing the potential impact of the growing numbers of data centres on Ireland's electricity supply and grid infrastructure, as well as the consequent challenges to Ireland’s climate action ambitions for energy decarbonisation.
The Houses of the Oireachtas Climate Action Hub brings together expertise from across the Service to enhance our provision of climate-related information, research and analysis. With input from our Library & Research Service, the Parliamentary Budget Office, the committees secretariat and the sustainability unit, this hub is a repository of information related to climate action in the Service.
The Climate | Focus series is available on our Climate Hub
Data centres and energy use
Ireland is a key data centre market, with very strong future services demand growth, especially in light of advances in artificial intelligence. The latest data show that data centres consume 21% of all metered electricity from the grid, increasing from 18% in 2022. In the past three years, the increase in electricity consumption by data centres is in the order of 1,000 GWh (or 1 TWh, terawatt hour), year-on-year, and this is outpacing new renewable electricity sources such as domestic and business solar energy.
Graphic illustrating the relative IT load on regions in the United States (blue) and Europe (orange)
Ireland’s key climate action ambitions for both decarbonised electricity generation and wider electrification of transport, business and industry mean that there are competing demands on the aging grid infrastructure and the electricity power supply. The rate at which renewables are developing is not keeping up with demand.
There will be a need for large energy users such as data centres when the full build-out of offshore renewables is met and new policy decisions are needed on private wire connections to the electricity grid and data centre-associated companies pursuing private renewable electricity generation projects off the grid. Decisions on new connections to the electricity grid and the gas network need to be balanced against the wider climate action targets with respect to decarbonisation of electricity generation, and the economics of the ICT sector in Ireland.