LAST UPDATE | 15 Nov 2023

CLOSE TO A quarter of households and close to a third of businesses are in arrears on their gas bills.

Meanwhile, 12% of households and 15% of businesses are in arrears when it comes to electricity bills.

The information will be outlined later today in an opening statement from the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to an Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action.

Today’s committee will be discussing future licences and contracts to connect data centres to the gas network.

The CRU will tell the committee that it is currently reviewing a “pathway” for new large energy users, such as data centres, to connect to electricity and gas systems in a way that “minimises the impact on national carbon emissions”.

As part of the Review, the CRU is considering criteria such as the requirement for a Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA) for renewable energy.

A CPPA is a long-term contract under which a business agrees to buy some, or all, of its electricity directly from a renewable energy generator.

The CRU will also outline its support for the planning process for data centres and other large energy users to include a provision heat export capability.

This would involve recovering waste heat from the data centres in a district heating system.

As part of its opening statement, the CRU provided retail market data on customer arrears up to the end of Quarter 3 of this year.

In the period from July to September, just under 160,000 (159,994) households were behind on their gas bills, equating to 23% of domestic gas customers.

Meanwhile, 15,501 businesses were in arrears on their gas bills in the third quarter of this year, equating to 29% of non-domestic gas customers.

And while the percentage of electricity customers who are in arrears is not as stark, the number of customers is considerably higher.

More than 275,000 (275,039) households are in arrears on their electricity bills, 12% of households.

For non-domestic electricity customers, this figure is 46,231, equating to 15% of businesses.

Last year, 2,031 households were disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 864 households were disconnected for non-payment of gas bills. 

As of September of this year, 710 households have been disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 1,113 have been disconnected for non-payment of gas. 

For non-domestic accounts, 465 were disconnected last year for non-payment of electricity while 104 were disconnected for non-payment of gas.

As of September, 352 businesses have been disconnected for non-payment of electricity and 102 have been disconnected for non-payment of gas.

Energy demand

Today’s committee will also hear from the Climate Change Advisory Council.

Its chair Marie Donnelly will note Eirgrid’s estimate that demand for electricity will increase by 34% by the end of the decade, with the largest growth coming from data centres.

By 2030, data centres are projected to account for 23% of electricity demand in Ireland.

Donnelly will also outline concerns over the rate of pace for delivering onshore renewable energy from wind and solar, which she described as “significantly lower than required” to reach the State’s climate targets.

Donnelly will also caution that the “delay to the expansion of our onshore renewable capacity, along with the continued use of coal in electricity generation, means that steeper emissions reductions will be required in the future”.

She too will call for new data centres and other large energy users to be required to build-in heat export ability at the time of initial construction.

Donnelly will also recommend that planning permission for all data centres should require Corporate Power Purchase Agreements for renewable electricity.

The Climate Change Advisory Council will today recommend that Gas Networks Ireland should not sign any more contracts to connect data centres to the gas network where the centre would be powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation.

It will also recommend that each energy system operator should work with large energy users, such as data centres, “to facilitate accurate hourly emissions reporting and grid carbon-intensity transparency”.

Donnelly will also express concern with the “recent growth in ‘Islanded’ data centres due to their potential to increase gas demand, jeopardise gas security and associated increased carbon emissions”.

‘Islanded’ data centre developments are those that are not connected to the electricity grid and are powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation.

The Government has stated that this is “not in line with national policy” and the CRU will tell the committee that it “understands that Gas Networks Ireland has paused processing islanded data centre applications in line with the Ministerial Direction”.