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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY Council has refused planning permission to Google Ireland for a new data centre at Grange Castle Business Park in south Dublin.
In its refusal, the Council cited what it called “the existing insufficient capacity in the electricity network (grid) and the lack of significant on site renewable energy to power the data centre” as reasons for refusal.
The scheme was to be the third phase of the Google Ireland data centre campus at Grange Castle Business Park and involves the creation of 800 construction jobs and 50 jobs when operational.
The new 72,400m2 data storage facility data centre involves the construction of eight data halls on a 50 acre greenfield/brownfield site.
Planning documents lodged with the application by Google Ireland warned that if the new data centre project does not progress, the company will struggle to meet the increasing demands for its ICT services to its customers here.
The planning documents stated that the data centre will indirectly contribute 224,250 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum without any mitigation measures.
A 78-page planning report by ARUP lodged with the Co Council stated that the proposed development “will be powered through an existing connection as agreed with Eirgrid”.
The report stated that the duration of the effects on climate “is considered to be short-term, as, in accordance with CAP24, 80 per cent of the electricity grid will be renewable by 2030, thereby significantly reducing carbon emissions”.
However, in its refusal, the Council also cited the lack of clarity provided in relation to the applicant’s engagement with Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in Ireland and the lack of a connection to the surrounding district heating network as grounds to turn the application down.
The Council also highlighted the proposed design of the development as well as how it relates to its surroundings, and lack of detail of how the proposal will impact power supply once operational in 2027.
The Council ruled that Google Ireland has failed to demonstrate that the proposed use is acceptable on Enterprise and Employment (EE) zoned lands, in accordance with the South Dublin County Development Plan (SDCC) 2022-2028.
The Council also refused planning permission as the scheme did not comply with objective in the South Dublin County Development Plan in relation to the retention and protection of existing green infrastructure (stream and hedgerow), culverting and alteration of the stream on site, provision of green infrastructure, and complying with the SDCC Green Space Factor.
In a submission, An Taisce warned that planning for the data centre ”would further compromise our ability to achieve compliance with our carbon budget limits and would put additional pressure on renewables capacity to deal with the significant additional power demand”.
An Taisce’s Planning Officer, Sean O’Callaghan stated that the proliferation of data infrastructure has largely gone unchecked, and data centres now consume 21% of Ireland’s total metered electricity.
Mr O’Callaghan stated that the planned data centre will put great pressure on an already strained electricity grid in the Dublin region, particularly in light of the large number of existing and proposed data centres already in the area.
Mr O’Callaghan further contended that a projected increase of 0.44% in national emissions from the project “is entirely incompatible with our obligations to reduce emissions”.
Head of Policy at Friends of the Earth, Jerry MacEvilly stated “our concern is that the proposed development would actively undermine the achievement of the state’s carbon budget programme”.
Dr Colin Doyle has told the council that claims of commitment by Google and Google Ireland Ltd “to decarbonisation amount to greenwashing”.
He said: “The claims are all based on purchase of renewable electricity. While these purchases can be reported in corporate Green House Gas (GHG) accounting systems, they do not mitigate or offset in any way the physical additional GHG emissions caused by Google’s activities in Ireland.”
Google Ireland now has the option of appealing the decision to An Bord Pleanála.
Asked to comment on the Council decision, a spokesperson for Google Ireland said this morning: “We don’t have a comment at this time.”
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This is why our bills are so high, these corporations are sucking up all the usage and supply.
@Sean Money: no it’s not. It’s cause we have shut down our gas and coal power stations and have to buy our energy mainly from the uk. The greens got a gas storage facility blocked so we can’t buy gas in bulk from Qatar on the cheap and ship it back ourselves. We are building a power line to France which will powered by nuclear power but passed laws to ban nuclear power in Ireland. Treasure island at its finest.
@Sean Money: Did you not read the article ? They would sign up to CPPA’s.. therefore reducing reliance on the grid! Also without data centres you wouldn’t be able to use a lot of online platforms..
@John Lee: There’s an article?
@John Lee: They can sign up to anything they want.; they are still the reason what we have so much fossil-fuelled electricity generation.
Which is costing us a fortune.
And the thing about the Internet that seems to escape you is that the information can be located anywhere in the world.
Amazing, isn’t it?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: If we had the truth, the real actual truth of data centers (and many other things) we would be in position to take a stance on it, what we have is the art of obfuscation. We also have a brass necked government complaining of “misinformation” and “disinformation” from certain quarters that they don’t like!
https://www.thejournal.ie/eamon-ryan-data-centres-6444069-Jul2024/
When Google has a word with their pals the “insufficient capacity on the power grid” and “lack of renewable energy” will magically be solved. When that happens, you will know then.
@Paddy Short: Most people are able to reach a conclusion about what is obvious.
But let’s use some figures for the right-wingers.
Let’s assume we need 100MW electricity generation (it’s a nice round number), and that RE is giving us 50MW, with fossil fuels the balance.
And let us assume Data Centres are consuming 21% of this, or 21MW.
If the Data Centres were not here, then
1) we would be saving 21MW of electricity
2) that electricity is fossil fuel generated, as the RE is still on-stream, but we could shut down 21MW of thermal generation
3) our electricity needs would now be reduced to 79MW from the original 100MW
4) therefore our RE would be giving us 63% of our needs, not the 50% currently (79MW/50MW)
5) reducing our CO2 emissions
6) helping us meet our Climate Change targets
7) reducing our fines (taxpayer) for not meeting Climate Change targets
8) and saving us 42% of our fossil fuel imports for electricity generation (21/50)
9) improving our balance of payments
10) reducing our dependence on foreign, often volatile, and certainly costly, fuels
Instead…
Each extra Data Centre moves us ever further away from all our goals.
To our cost.
And they want to add more…
This one would give us 50 jobs.
Or 1 job per acre.
Wow!
@Sean Money: out bills are high because Eamon Ryan has not built enough power stations and overseen a planning system that takes 10 year to give a grant for a rabbit hutch let alone a wind farm. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his incompetence.
@Sean Money: your comment doesn’t make sense.
Data centre is one thing, all electric car charging is another that the media’s seems to ignore completely.
Probably not suiting the green agenda . Meanwhile the prices are still a robbery
@Dominic Leleu: green agenda is less cars on the roads regardless of power source
@Dominic Leleu: 90% of EV charging happens overnight when tariffs are lower precisely because there is plenty of spare capacity on the grid, so people need to stop bringing up this red herring.
Surely a highly advanced Tech company can come up with a better idea for powering it’s data centres, other than sucking from the Grid? I’m not proposing cold fusion levels of genius, but take a look how other companies do it, ala the Facebook purchase of output from Rosspile and Gillinstown solar farms. If they are so keen to keep expanding exponentially, like AWS, and have a bank account balance of Trillions, why not build a new solar farm for their own use? It’s not as if they can’t afford it.
@Meh Meh: sun don’t shine at night. Greens are clueless regarding energy needs of a modern society.
@gregory pym: Ever hear of a yoke called a battery? Clue: there’s one in your phone. It actually ‘stores’ energy. Amazing invention.
They’re currently on Google Search looking for alternative sites available.
Wow a shock. We close the powerstations without a plan B and find we are short on power..who could possibly of seen this coming .
Google or Spyhub as I call it. :-)
Ireland should be the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. Plenty of space and wind off the west coast but all projects are bogged down in objections and reviews. Some developers have abandoned Ireland and moved countries. We could end up paying 7 – 8 billion a year in fines for not reaching targets.
Big Tech will go elsewhere now be careful what you wish for
@greenlane collins: Boo hoo. Theyre replacing jobs with AI anyway courtesy of the data centres. Its like turkeys voting for xmas. “60% of the jobs in advanced economies are at risk of being replaced by AI” – high end jobs at that. Look it up.
Well done.
Google tried to shut down criticism of israel, and therefore are themselves complicit in these crimes against humanity.
As far as I am concerned they can go Sit on a Richard as our Ukrainian friends so eloquently told the russians on that soon-to-be ex-Black Sea Fleet flagship.
So a big data centre to employ 50 people when completed. A.I. has already cut that number to 50 as a few years ago 100s if not a 1000 would be needed to maintain and manage, I guess all code monkeys and software apes are gone, they’ve not developed the robots yet to take the hardware engineers jobs, hence, the 50 jobs when open.
@Tom L: Data Centres always employed only a very few.
They are not making anything. They just need a few staff monitoring the systems.
It’s a bit like putting the horse before the cart if people deleted all the rubbish they save this problem wouldn’t arise Especially parents who save all their children’s school books etc also people who keep everything because buying space is easier than deleting. tax people for buying storage
Talk about shooting yourself in the leg!
Ministerial Order from Eamonn before he leaves office, will probably overturn this decision. No journalist investigating him & his links to Data Centres & their massive Energy use & Emissions.
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