Build it and they will hum: What next for Ireland and data centres?

ASIDE FROM A few die-hards, it’s hard to find fans of data centres.

They’re big. They’re ugly. They use an ungodly amount of electricity.

Unfortunately, they’re also crucial. Data centres essentially power the internet. They are the physical infrastructure needed for storing basically all the data used by computers.

This data is used in everything from YouTube videos to email accounts to spreadsheets. It’s also critical in sectors such as banking and healthcare. Without data centres, much of the modern internet-based economy simply wouldn’t work.

And as technology use continues to grow globally, with the likes of artificial intelligence being increasingly energy-intensive, the need for data centres will likely only grow.

So for society as we know it to function, these have to get built somewhere.

With that in mind, there’s a strong argument that this ‘somewhere’ should be Ireland.

Data centres produce enormous amounts of heat. If they’re built in hotter climates, money and water has to be spent to cool them down. This ends up leading to higher carbon emissions, contributing to global climate change.

In a few countries like Ireland, the cooler climate means that this is far less of a problem. This means that data centres built here tend to use fewer resources and be better for the environment compared to those built in hotter nations.

Ireland also makes sense because many of the companies building data centres – Google, Amazon and Microsoft the three most important – already have sizeable operations and their European bases here. It is also in an ideal location between the US and Europe.

So if Ireland is such a great place for something so important, it could have come as a surprise that Google was refused permission last week to develop a data centre in Dublin. 

But the key reason for South Dublin County Council’s decision was the one touched on at the start of this article – data centres use lots of electricity.

The approximately 80 data centres currently located in Ireland use about a fifth of the country’s electricity – as much as every urban household in the country combined.

Because of this, new data centres place a big demand on Ireland’s national grid. This is the infrastructure which transmits electricity, powering homes and businesses.

Essentially, only so much electricity can be moved around on the grid at a given time.

As data centres use so much electricity, South Dublin County Council was worried that if Google built a new one in the area, it could lead to problems with powering local homes and businesses.

It was also why national grid operator Eirgrid decided in 2021 to stop connecting new data centres in the greater Dublin area. This has been reported as a kind of ‘ban’ on new data centres, although in practice companies are moving ahead with plans to build them.

Since 2021, 11 data centres have been approved by Gas Networks Ireland to connect to the country’s gas system, raising emissions concerns.

Which brings us to the second key issue raised by the South Dublin County Council is that Google’s proposed new facility would emit a lot of carbon.

Even in Ireland’s cooler climate, data centres still use vast amounts of electricity. The national grid powers data centres with electricity that is generated by the burning of fossil fuels and renewable energy, leading to higher emissions.

The council found that the proposed new Google centre alone would have caused the country’s emissions to rise by 0.44%, a major problem when Ireland faces legally-binding EU targets to lower emissions.

Miss these targets, and Ireland faces big annual fines.

By using so much of the country’s power, data centres also play an indirect role in pushing up consumer electricity prices.

Compelling reasons

So Ireland is a great spot for data centres. But there are compelling reasons why we don’t want them, and Google’s refusal raises questions over how many more can be built if things stay as they are.

A possible solution would be for data centre developers – the rich technology giants – to make a bigger societal contribution.

The likes of wind farm developers have to put money into a community fund as part of the deal for getting planning permission.

A similar measure could be that tech firms could contribute financially to grid improvements in the areas they want to construct data centres.

The pressure data centres put on the grid is a very real concern. Just 13 amber alerts – warnings that Ireland has very little electricity supply in reserve – were issued between 2010 and 2019. In 2022, there were eight, with many pointing to data centres as one of the primary culprits of the increasing strain.

Secondly, data centre companies could also be required to source renewable sources of electricity.

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This is something the government has already looked at making a requirement.

However, it has not yet done so, with the Irish Times reporting earlier this year that the proposal led to a heated row among cabinet ministers.

While the details weren’t reported, the gist of the conflict looks to be a view on one hand that the move is needed for the environment, but concern on the other that it would hit Ireland’s tech investment.

Given the above reasons for why tech companies want to build their data centres here in the first place, there are signs that they could be willing to make the trade-off.

Finally, there is also an argument that Ireland should look to have some sort of allowance made at an EU level for data centre emissions.

Much of the EU uses products powered by data centres in Ireland. While still producing lots of emissions, they produce less in Ireland than they would in somewhere like the hotter Spain.

Climate change is a global problem, which is too often viewed through a national lens. If building a crucial asset in one nation results in lower emissions than would otherwise be created, it seems odd that the country would also potentially be penalised for this.

Build it and they will hum

So what next for Ireland’s humble, hulking, data centres?

Based on how the modern economy works, more data centres will have to be built.

Ireland seems the perfect spot, with some even going as far as to argue that Ireland has a “global responsibility” to build the facilities due to them generating lower emissions here.

Tech companies are full steam ahead, last year, it was reported that 14 data centres were under construction in Ireland, while planning has been approved for 40 more.

But South Dublin County Council’s decision shows that at a certain point, the idea of Ireland as the perfect data centre site will likely butt heads with the limits of the country’s increasingly creaking grid.

And there could also be a situation coming down the tracks where the country ends up facing EU emissions fines, which could be in large part due to data centre emissions.

With these two very real limiters in mind, perhaps asking nicely for data centre developers to kick in a bit more to build these critical facilities is the least we could do.