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DATA CENTRES USING backup and emergency generators in Ireland are releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide emissions, a new investigation has revealed.
The Journal Investigates has uncovered that over 135,000 tonnes of CO2 was emitted from these centres in the last five years from generators not on the electricity grid.
This amount of CO2 is comparable to running roughly 33,750 cars for a year in terms of the climate pollution produced.
These backup generators are used to keep the energy-hungry equipment in these centres operational during times of grid connectivity issues.
The investigation also highlights how some planned data centres intend to be powered by natural gas because they cannot be connected to the grid as it is under such strain.
Our team has also trawled through planning applications from every local authority to map data centres. Although these locations aren’t top-secret, they are not widely advertised by their operators and are often located in industrial estates.
We have found as many as 89 data centres believed to be operational, the vast majority of which are located in the Greater Dublin area, with at least 13 data centres in the capital each using as much power as Kilkenny City.
The rapid expansion of data centres located in Ireland has accelerated in recent years despite challenges for providers in securing connections to the national electricity grid.
In early 2022, EirGrid imposed a de facto moratorium on connecting new data centres to the grid due to concerns about capacity. We reveal how some new data centres are proposing to use natural gas, a fossil fuel, to circumvent the grid connection challenges.
The expansion of the sector is expected to hit new heights in the coming years as the shift towards artificial intelligence puts greater demands on the need for large data centres.
Under EU rules, large data centres in Ireland are required to record and report the amount of CO2 they produce from emergency and backup generators.
The EU Emissions Trading System covers a range of different industries but any data centre with a “total rated thermal input exceeding 20 MW” is required to hold a Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) permit and report their emissions each year.
Dr Paul Deane, a senior lecturer in clean energy at University College Cork (UCC), says data centres of this size are quite large and would use the same amount of electricity as a large town.
A total of 24 GHG permits have been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to data centre operators in Ireland, with more than 800 emergency and backup generators of varying sizes listed as emission sources.
A common fuel used in these generators is gas oil, also known as red diesel, though some operators are switching to biofuels such as Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil.
Our investigative unit reviewed the Annual Verified Emissions of Irish data centres and found that 181,553 tonnes of CO2 have been emitted from data centres dating back to 2005.
Almost 94% (135,000 tonnes of CO2) of these emissions were since 2017 as the majority of data centres were brought online in recent years.
Deane says that while these emissions pale in comparison to Ireland’s annual CO2 emissions – Ireland as a whole emitted more than 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year according to the EPA – “when you’re trying to reduce emissions as much as possible, every tonne of carbon dioxide counts”.
One data centre campus owned by EdgeConneX in Lucan, Co Dublin has emitted by far the highest from backup and emergency generators of any other campus, with almost 130,000 tonnes of CO2 since coming online in 2017.
The 28 emergency generators listed at the site are responsible for these emissions, keeping three data centres online.
We have contacted EdgeConneX for comment.
The Journal Investigates found planning files granting permission for two additional large data centres at the same EdgeConneX campus in Dublin.
From outside the campus, it appears that these have been built or are nearing completion, but it is unclear whether they are operational. Planning permission for a further data centre on the site was rejected in 2023, but the decision by South Dublin County Council has been appealed to An Bórd Pleanála.
Data centres operated by the four main big tech companies – Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta – have also contributed almost 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from their backup generators since becoming operational, though the majority of this (18,000 tonnes) came from Amazon’s data centres.
The Journal Investigates contacted all four companies for comment.
A spokesperson for Microsoft cited “new challenges” posed by the power demands of artificial intelligence in meeting sustainability goals, but added, “we remain resolute in our commitment to meet our climate goals”.
No response was received from Google, while spokespeople for Amazon and Meta both pointed to how their respective companies match electricity use with 100% renewable energy.
This means that for all the emissions generated by the company, it purchases renewable energy from wind or solar farms across the country, balancing its emissions.
Deane, however, says that this matching of renewable energy, while representing progress, is somewhat opaque.
“That’s a good step in the right direction, but it’s really not good enough. It doesn’t mean that you’re powered by renewables every hour,” he says. “It just essentially means that you’re using a synthetic accounting exercise to offset your emission over the course of a year.”
Deane says that for data centre operators to be serious about climate change, they should be using clean energy all of the time and not just “balancing their energy load over the course of the year”.
Large data centres must also apply for a license from the EPA if they want to run their backup generators for more than 18 hours a year.
These Industrial Emissions licences are granted for specified industrial and agricultural activities and are required for data centres with a thermal input equal to or greater than 50MW.
Deane says that a data centre or campus of this size would use the equivalent amount of electricity as a small city such as Kilkenny. The EPA has approved 15 Industrial Emissions licences for data centres.
As part of the application for an Industrial Emissions licence, operators must submit their planned electricity use per year.
The Journal Investigates can reveal the total electricity demand of the licenced data centres surpasses 10,000 gigawatt-hours annually.
A number of data centres have also applied for an Industrial Emissions licence and are awaiting a decision from the EPA. If all these licences were granted, the total electricity demand would surpass 16,000 gigawatt-hours every year.
This would be equivalent to over half the total metered electricity consumption in Ireland last year.
However, it should be noted that these figures differ substantially from figures provided by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In 2023, the CSO estimated that the total metered electricity consumption of data centres was just over 6,300 gigawatt-hours. Similarly, EirGrid’s projected electricity demand of data centres in 2030 comes to 13,000 gigawatt-hours, also below the operator-provided projections in the Industrial Emissions licences.
A spokesperson for the EPA told The Journal Investigates the applicant signs a declaration that all information provided is “truthful, accurate and complete to the best of their knowledge and belief”.
The spokesperson, accounting for the discrepancy, also said that data centre operators may use other sources other than mains electricity to power their operations.
On the inflated figures, Deane says it is difficult to say whether companies are overestimating to give themselves room to grow or if there is some element of calculated speculation in the numbers.
Either way, he says, “they point to an enormous appetite for the industry to grow its consumption well beyond what the system can currently cope with and certainly well beyond our legal limits for climate emission reductions.”
A major factor in the continued growth of data centres is the rising demand for artificial intelligence.
Speaking at an AI conference in Galway in September Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise Dara Calleary said that the government wants 75% of Irish companies to be using AI by 2030.
In order to reach this target, more data centres will likely be required to meet the massive power demands of artificial intelligence.
Gas Networks Ireland has received 22 formal enquiries from data centres about connecting to the gas network, according to data released by the Minister for Environment Eamon Ryan in early November in answer to a parliamentary question by Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin.
The Industrial Emissions licence applications also show that some data centres are relying on natural gas to circumvent the challenges with grid connections.
Some of these plans include building on-site power generation facilities run on natural gas that only operate during times of constrained electricity demand from the grid.
A number of these peaking plants, as they are known, can also send electricity generated from natural gas back to the grid and operate as an alternative power source for the data centres.
Hannah Daly, a Professor in sustainable energy at UCC, says once the infrastructure of these plants is built, there’s an incentive to continue using it, almost putting a lock on fossil fuels and leaving less incentive to transition to a fully renewable energy supply.
The Industrial Emissions licences also show some data centres will rely on natural gas until such a time when a connection to the electricity grid can be supplied.
A data centre campus in Grange Castle, Dublin operated by US developer Vantage is one of those sites planning to use natural gas.
Documents submitted to EPA by the company and reviewed by The Journal Investigates say that “EirGrid has confirmed that there is not sufficient capacity in the current network to support this development”.
In lieu of this, the data centre will be powered by natural gas “until such time that a connection to the EirGrid is established”.
A spokesperson for Vantage told The Journal Investigates that the power generation plant “is designed to complement the grid connection, not replace it” and that grid power will be used to power the data centre once construction is completed.
They also said that the company “has a connection agreement with EirGrid” but that the data centre will be supported by the power generation plant “given the temporary power constraints in Dublin”.
Another data centre, this time opened by UK-headquartered Pure DC, will also be powered by electricity generated from natural gas due to challenges in securing a grid connection.
A spokesperson for Pure DC confirmed that the data centre campus is currently powered “using natural gas and backup generators fuelled with Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil”, adding that it is planning to transition to a sustainable power solution “as soon as viable”.
Daly says the shift towards using natural gas is “far more carbon intensive than electricity from the grid because it’s less efficient and entirely based on fossil fuels”.
The biggest problem, however, she says is that natural gas used by data centres is not quantified in Ireland’s greenhouse gas emission projections “which means it’s a massive blind spot for our carbon our climate action plan”.
“We’re operating completely in the dark here and there’s a significant risk that this will lock in more inefficient fossil fuel use, which would be a major threat to carbon budgets,” she adds.
The number of data centres in Ireland is a somewhat ambiguous figure. According to energy consultants BitPower, there are 92 data centres in Ireland, but it offers little information about where they are.
The Journal Investigates asked the Commission for Regulation of Utilities for details of the data centre grid connections in Ireland, but it refused to provide this information saying it was “commercially sensitive”.
Our investigative unit trawled through planning records from every local authority and used online web sources to compile a comprehensive list of the data centres believed to be currently active in Ireland.
Through this, we found a total of 89 data centres, roughly in line with the figure provided by BitPower. We also found 11 more data centres that are at various stages of development and may already be operational in some capacity. And over 30 more have been granted planning permission or are under appeal to An Bórd Pleanála.
If all these data centres were built, there would be close to 130 data centres in Ireland.
The above map shows that the vast majority of data centres are located around the Greater Dublin area, with large clusters built around Clonshaugh, Blanchardstown and Clondalkin.
These data centres can vary greatly in size, with little information on their capacity available, though Bitpower’s report says there are 64 data centres in Ireland that use between 10MW (mega-watts) and 50MW.
As previously mentioned, data centres of this size use the same amount of electricity as a small city, such as Kilkenny.
The Journal Investigates was able to locate a number of these large data centre campuses by reviewing Industrial Emissions licence applications and cross-referencing with planning records.
Of the 15 licences that have been issued by the EPA, 13 of them relate to data centres based in Dublin, meaning the electricity demand of the capital is enormous.
Seven of the nine outstanding applications are also located in Dublin, though one is an updated application of an existing licence.
Daly says that Dublin has emerged as one of the five major data centre hubs in Europe and is putting pressure on the physical infrastructure of the electricity grid.
She says the grid has reached a saturation point in terms of supply which is pushing data centres to invest in natural gas to power the growing demands of data centres.
As more data centres opt for natural gas, the pressure on the electricity grid may reduce, but it will cause “greater greenhouse gas emissions”, threatening Ireland’s climate commitments.
Reporter: Conor O’Carroll • Editor: Maria Delaney • Main Image Design: Lorcan O’Reilly • Social Media: Sadbh Cox
This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe as part of a project with Pablo Jiménez Arandia in Spain.
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Data centers replacing factories and housing.
@Phillip Smyth: and all the top jobs, mainly in data centers.imo
@Dave G Doe: I agree but at what cost, kettle calling the pot black.
@Dave G Doe: for what ?
@Dave G Doe: Data centres can go anywhere in the world. so no they are not needed in Ireland. Our country is too small our electric grid cannot handle all their demands.
@Dave G Doe: Why? Because (as in housing and other ‘industries’) a new demand is created; instantaneous and ever accessible data storage, initially intended for businesses, rolled out to meet everyone’s ‘needs’.
@Dave G Doe: A better way of dealing with data is needed. The vast majority of data (90%) stored in data centers at the moment is unused rubbish, duplicated information or ai generated gobbledegook.
We need some way of trimming the fat instead of constantly adding more capacity. Never ending data center expansion is madness, lazy and completely unsustainable.
@Ger Whelan: When they are granted planning permission etc, I am sure they have to put forward their power requirements. So who’s really at fault ??
@Phillip Smyth: If there wasn’t a demand for Tik Tok etc we wouldn’t need these centers. I heard from a lady last week who supports the Green Party complaining about Data centers who in fact is a massive user of Tik Tok! Some people just don’t have a clue…Doe!!
@martin lawlor: the people who say yes obviously.
@Phillip Smyth: refugees and economic migrants replacing Irish
@Phillip Smyth: Data centres don’t offer much employment. It doesn’t take a lot of people to run them.
@Pork Hunt: No harm in the main.
@Phillip Smyth: we’re just a socket for the world’s billionaires .
@another one? Always see this line parroted anytime data centres are mentioned but they are a significant employer in Ireland with high tech jobs and numerous spin offs in contracts, logistics etc. Those jobs could go anywhere but in many cases, companies have chosen to locate here. I don’t think driving employment out of Ireland is a sensible policy but you may have other ideas. Either way, data centres are t going anywhere so we need to figure out how to live with them. I think it’s easy and frankly lazy to point the finger at data centres especially from people who would no doubt be complaining if they were offline. This isn’t a data centre issue. It’s a poor governance issue. We need to invest in our infrastructure and encourage companies to invest further, not drive them away.
@Dave G Doe: and houses aren’t, government nodding dog doe
@Phillip Smyth: Relatively few jobs actually. A shrewd guess would say, utter corruption in the Irish political system is strongly present.
@Pork Hunt: I’m sure the same arguments were about Irish ‘economic’ immigrants, borrowing from Britain first are we? Clueless. I’d love to know where the workers will come from to fill the jobs? Something the far-right don’t an answer for only to ‘breed’ more according to on far right candidate, kind of brings me back to de Valera’s comment that Irish young people aren’t cattle to be shipped overseas, of course a comment by him with nothing to back it up, so now, you have your chance to give a solution? And please don’t tell me that a nurse or a doctor from abroad is robbing a job as many Irish nurses and doctors have fled in Ireland not to work in the mess that is our public health services, created by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael with the help of the Greens and Labour.
@Phillip Smyth: shit them down.
we don’t need them and I am sure we all pay for it one way or another.
Data centres running on fossil fuelled
power grid and diesel generators , the greens will have nightmares,
@Ned: This is how we produce all our electricity. Why pick just on smartphone users data sources.
@Ned: Due to the abolition of the milk quota in 2015, Dairy Cow numbers in Ireland increased by 50%, or half a million in the last 10 years (increasing from 1 million to 1.5 million dairy cows). All this data is freely available on the Census website.
Last year, Irelands dairy farms produced 8.3 billion litres of milk, 94% was exported, generating a revenue of €6.3 billion.
As a result of the expansion of the dairy sector, an extra 4.84 million tonnes CO2 equivalent per annum was emitted, or approximately 20 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent over 5 years (the expansion of the dairy sector also polluted our rivers).
On the other hand, we are told, emergency generators at Data Centres emitted 135,000 tonnes of CO2 over the last 5 years, or 27,000 tonnes CO2 per annum.
Accordingly, expansion of the Dairy Sector due to the abolition of the milk quota resulted in 180 times more CO2 emissions than emergency generators at Data Centers.
I wonder if The Journal is interested in publishing this information?
Reference:
Läpple, D., Carter, C.A. and Buckley, C., 2022. EU milk quota abolition, dairy expansion, and greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural Economics, 53(1), pp.125-142.
(According to Läpple, Carter and Buckley, the production of litre of milk results in 1.1 kg of CO2 equvilant emissions, primarily from Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. On a 100-year timescale, methane is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide and it is 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale.)
@David Jordan: the animals identifying as dairy increased, those identifying as beef decreased roughly the same amount. It’s respiratory co2 emmited from livestock, grass takes up co2 during photosynthesis. If the grass was left to decay into fields, it would produce methane. Pulling co2 and methane out of the ground where it’s been for millions of years is the problem. You know that, your a smart guy. Don’t let veganism cloud your judgement.
@Ned: I’m sure they will have a tax for that.
@P. V. Aglue: Wrong.
As I said, Dairy cows (and beef cattle) emit methane, via enteric fermentation in their stomachs, not CO2. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 28 stronger than carbon dioxide on a 100 year time scale, and 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale. Also, fertilizer and slurry emit methane and nitrous oxides; nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas ~273 times stronger than CO2. Ammonia is also emitted.
While ammonia is not a greenhouse gas itself, it is a an air pollutant that contributes to toxic ground level ozone production, and nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas).
There is also run off from animal waste and fertilizer use, polluting rivers lakes and groundwater with phosphorus and nitrate, see e.g. “No signs of improvement in quality of Irish lakes, estuaries and groundwaters”.
No amount of soil CO2 sequestration is going to offset these emissions, or indeed the damage to our rivers, groundwater and lakes.
Finally, the ability of soils to sequester CO2 was likely overestimated, and unfeasible in practice:
“Some recent studies, estimating the potential of farmland to store more carbon through innovative soil management, are presenting an overoptimistic picture of what can be achieved and the analyses need to undergo a ‘reality check’, according to a group of leading researchers.
“When organic material is added to fields, only about one third of carbon is incorporated into the soil itself in the first year; the rest is decomposed by soil microbes and ends up back in the atmosphere,” Stephan Haefele, a soil scientist at Rothamsted Research explained.
Haefele added: “To achieve a specified soil carbon increase that persists for 30 years, it’s necessary to add about 10 times that much.
“So, you need to add many tons of organic matter per hectare to increase soil carbon by one tonne per hectare.”
@P. V. Aglue: nice try bluffer
@P. V. Aglue: “It’s respiratory co2 emmited from livestock, grass takes up co2 during photosynthesis.”
It’s very disheartening to see, as a scientist who worked to reduce methane (CH4) emissions from agriculture, who knows what he is talking about, to see your extremely wrong post upvoted.
Thanks Eamon.
Thanks FF/FG
The FFG way no other country wants them
Irish consumers pay 60% more per kilowatt-hour than the corporations that run these data centres. The public is effectively subsidising them while energy companies continue to enjoy record profits. Eamon Ryan knew full well they’d use fossil fuel generated energy!
Green Party policies —from retrofitting your home to driving a conventional car, or simply existing in rural Ireland— do nothing but penalise ordinary Irish people while protecting the profits of corporations.
They are delusional about the limitations of the technologies they tout as silver bullets (heat pumps for secondhand homes, renewable energy storage, EV batteries, etc.).
People need to wake up and realise where we’re headed in terms of energy security. Those wind farms aren’t going to cut it! ☢️
@Ash O: thanks for that very informative.
@Ash O: interesting comments. Why do you think wind farms won’t cut it?
@Ash O: And the fee paid to micro generators who feed into the grid, has from November been reduced (21 cents to 19 cents) although clearly the demand for “sustainably generated power ” is there.
Demand and supply price increases apparently only for big companies, same rules don’t apply
@Ash O: Scandinavian countries produce twice the electrical energy per person than we do.
We should be expanding the grid dramatically to support the expected higher usage from heat pumps and EVs.
Our budget surplus needs to go on this sort of infrastructure investment or we will be screwed very soon.
@Ash O: nimbys need to get out of the way and allow a massive expansion of wind farms on and offshore. It’s a proven way to beef up our energy security now rather than in 20 years with a nuclear reactor and with a government unable to control costs it’ll make the Childrens hospital look like chump change.
@Paul Travers: Because the subsea and underground transmission infrastructure required to get the wind generated electricity to the national grid doesn’t exist, will take decades, cost billions (it is Ireland after all) all while more and more of our energy is gobbled up at cheaper rates by these centres. Look at how many have planning.
Ireland imports electricity from the UK, which people don’t seem to realise. There’s also a proposal to build an interconnection with France. A good proportion of that energy is and will be generated by nuclear power. But no one wants to admit that.
The Irish consumer will continue paying the highest rates in Europe, while corporations enjoy the discounts.
We have an energy regulator but they are about as useful a tit on a bull.
@Athena: Absolutely agree! It is a sham. Where is our energy regulator? Doing sweet F A.
@Ash O: The “Energy Regulator” was created to ensure private corporations would be profitable
Until the creation of this regulator such companies could not compete with the ESB
The Regulator’s 1st action was to force the ESB into huge price rises to make it possible for these private outfits to compete, and profit, in Ireland.
We have gone from having among the lowest electricity prices in the EU to being among the highest since the introduction of this”competition”.
In Ireland “competition” seems to be for the benefit of corporations, not consumers.
Thanks to FFG.
@Ash O: “There’s also a proposal to build an interconnection with France.”
It’s not a proposal, it’s under construction. The Celtic Interconnector is expected to be completed by 2026. The HVDC convertor station at La Martyre is under construction:
https://www.celticinterconnector.eu/le-chantier-se-visite-a-la-martyre/
THEY ARE FORCING US TO PAY MORE ! But it Won’t Become an Election Issue…NOT a Chance!
Did Brendan O’Brien short circuit yet?
Those posh greens living in their super heated homes wouldnt know a sod of turf if it hit them on the arxe.But they enjoy jetting off on their aviation fuelled exoctic holidays and expect the rest of us to come up with £70k+ to retrofit our homes.
More lies from Greens and FFG.. Plus added bonus of shutting up the delusional datacentre defenders.
I’m more than happy to see increases in Co2 levels. It’s food for plants and trees and it helps global greening across the world. We need more fossil fuels and we need to remove all subsides on renewable energy. They need to fall flat on their face by themselves. We also need to start shipping in fracked gas and repeal all our emissions targets.
@Frank O’Hara: The quality of trolling has really gone down over the years.
@Frank O’Hara: Fracked gas? Nein danke. And – CO2 increased levels are only good if there are plants to use them, how many trees does the average person plant per year? I plant about two dozen as I haven’t room for more. Many people have no room at all but can join schemes that buy up land to plant. But in reality, who joins them to plant on a regular and long term basis?
Anyone here reading this?
@Frank O’Hara: don’t look up Frank.
@John Moore: Dave and Frank are the same troll.
How sad must his life be?
@John Moore: Is that your only response to factual information? Let’s talk some more facts. NASA admitted under oath at a Congressional hearing that there has been no increase in the frequency or the strength of storms or hurricanes. The EPA admits that there has been no increase in the frequency of droughts worldwide. They’ve collected data through their Palmer Index which has tracked drought frequency from 1895 until 2024. My point on Co2 aiding global greening has also been confirmed by numerous scientific papers and once again by NASA themselves because Co2 is food for trees because it helps to speed up photosynthesis. Sea level increases is also a phoney fear. 60% of Holland is 6.7 metres (6,700mm) underwater, yet we are told to worry if sea levels increase by 3.9mm. Give me a break!
@Fergus O’Donnell: Dave G Doe seems to be another trolling profile of Paul F Doe. I have nothing to do with him and I think he’s extremely unprofessional and ads nothing to the discussion. I have nothing to do with him and I am only myself. Plus he’s a Fine Gael shill which disgusts me.
@Athena: Fracked gas is completely safe and the irrational fear of it needs to end if we want to see our energy prices stay low. Environmentalists say that fracking is evil, and at the very least, awful. the real story on fracking is that the risks are small and the rewards immense. Fracking lowered the price of natural gas so much that Americans heat their homes for much less and I want Ireland to feel those benefits also. The idea that fracked gas causes peoples’ drinking war to go on fire is probably the biggest and most pervasive risk with fracking. It doesn’t matter whether you plant trees or not, even NASA admits that Co2 helps to turn the landscape green without any help such as planting new trees. That’s because the Co2 acts as a form of fertiliser and can expand area of greening.
@Franno: You haven’t provided any sort of coherent rebuttal to what I said. Is that because you know I’m right?
@Frank O’Hara: Most of us have jobs that don’t involve trolling and don’t have the time to debate with your clear obvious lies
@FoxyBoiiYT: What lies punk? You people have no answer when you’re confronted with factual information. I’m not trolling anyone. Do you see single out anyone in particular with my original comment that would constitute trolling? I didn’t think so. I could easily say that you yourself are one for adding nothing productive to the discussion, only snide remarks like a troll would.
@Frank O’Hara: Sure, let’s contaminate groundwater for “safe gas”. Again, Nein danke, my friends near Flint might disagree with you.
@Athena: Wow, you anti-fracking nuts really are crazy! The problems that Flint, Michigan encountered with their water supply had nothing to do with fracking. It was caused by faulty pipes and a failure to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water which caused lead to leak into the water supply. The pipes were replaced in a suitable timeframe and they started to corrode and eventually were subjected to leaching. Get your facts straight before you start trashing an excellent source of cheap fuel.
@Athena: world is 20% greener in last 25. Deserts shrinking in some areas. We are actually cooler in Europe than the average for the last 3000 years.
You can’t make it up , we’re taxed to the hilt over carbon tax and now this
Eamon Ryan’s mishandling of the energy sector is to blame. Note he decided not to run again thankfully. He and his party have damaged Ireland. Hope we will see the back of O’Gormless who’s tweets invited the fakefugees to ireland.
And yet the government wants to raid your house if you’re suspected of burning a bit of turf.. Then on top of that we’re being forced by the esb to subsidise these massive energy consumers.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not their fault. It’s the government and the esb’s fault for not upgrading and maintaining our grid to keep up with demand. They have all the facts and figures at hand, they can easily see projections for what is needed over the next 50 years. They could invest in the next 50 years or they could have dividends right now. Short term greed seems to win every time when there’s no regulation.
Is this why we all pay so much on our energy bills? Tax, vat and Co2? Are we taking up the slack in fines for all these data centers? The millions we are fined by the EU each year for our toxic fumes, but yet we haven’t got anywhere near the fumes germany or Poland pump out.
I have in front of me, my aunts electric bill for the last 2 months, and it’s €60. She lives in Spain. How is this possible? Before I left Ireland I had to pay nearly €300 for 2 months! We can keep blaming Ukraine or whatever, truth is, FF,FG are in bed with the energy companies and yet we have to pay through the nose. Please wake the fook up.
Hope they are using turf
Another benefit of AI, not
This is a major scandal of our time, corrupt & rotten to the core. What other EU country puts its National Grid to the point of collapse & blows its Emissions Targets out the window. This needs investigation, but sadly our Media are in the pocket of Govt & Big Business, the Planning around these needs investigation & information supplied, Local Authorities, the IDA, Minister Eamon Ryan, the CRU & Govt need to be investigated as to who is turning a blind eye & who is gaining from this, it stinks & is rotten to the core.
@SV3tN8M4: Almost all media of any reach gets their profits from big business, in one way or another, even if they are not owned by such large corporations themselves.
The Guardian being one notable exception.
That right there encapsulates all that is wrong with the political system.
Vat on power bills are absolutely highway robbery.
@Phillip Smyth: and all the other charges, before you get to the actual bill, also how are other suppliers be in the position to offer you lower cost?
Massive square structures with built up green areas to make it look like, they are doing nothing to the environment, when they are sucking the energy and the real life out of the planet.
If those data centers were not here, then we could switch off more of our fossil fuelled electricity generation.
Therefore every single watt consumed by data canters comes from fossil fuels, no matter how this is spun.
And dumb Paddy footing the bill on the other end with increases on fuel costs
Let’s get one thing straight, carbon emissions are not changing the climate, stop following the pied piper ffs
Does this mean we won’t meet our EV adoption targets. LOL! What a bunch of amateurs and people being led along like sheep.
So stop fxxking googling and scrolling.
Absolutely disgusting. At 18 years of age you should be exploring the world, having adventures, going to college, getting a job etc.
Not told, you must kill people you’ve never even met or know, especially from people who live the other side of the world
What’s the issue? Our emissions are nothing compared to most countries.
We need data centers as if we don’t, we won’t have Google, Microsoft, etc. This country will be under major pressure from the new US administration, as well as with the EU, over the next 4 years. If we lose the revenue generated by these companies, we are all in trouble!!
@Seamus Harney: If only those data centers could be connected to the Internet…
Then they could be located anywhere.
@Seamus Harney: We have the third highest hub for data centres in the world. We don’t need that many.
Article fails to mention that these companies are doing a lot behind the scenes and its more about ireland being red raw useless at renewables overall. For example Microsoft, amazon and Google have purchased and stored 8.2 million, 250k and 162k of CO2 to date. All outside of Ireland because we don’t have the foresight to provide solutions in this space
@David Hynes: When you say “purchased… CO2″, do you mean green washing or how does it work?
@Athena: Purchase fully certified CO2, stored in the ground, biochar or cement.. not greenwashing
@David Hynes: So greenwashing their own operations then.
It’s time to look at nuclear power, its the only co2 friendly power source capable of supplying the electricity requirements of the future….
@Trevor Mc Evoy: As a result of Russia’s warring, Germany accelerated its move away from fossil fuels.
Last summer Germany’s RE sector produced so much electricity that wholesale prices went negative.
Hmmm a scoop from an Online media outlet (no harvesting of forests, pulping, or distribution of hardcopies)… did the authors drive to all the local authority offices or access the Planning files Online..? When drafting the story, was there physical meetings or Online collaboration?
A wee bit of perspective and balance before vilifying datacentres is needed… perhaps a scoop around a counterfactual life cycle analysis on the avoided carbon emissions from the services data centres provide is a worthy challenge for the digitised 4th estate?
What ever about here on Planet Ireland, where we just need to get rid of the data centres, kill half the cows and buy a million bicycles, over on Earth the solution to all this is plain as the light of day. We need to urgently re purpose the World Military Industrial Complex to the manufacture and installation of literally thousands of SMRs, into every existing thermal power plant, smelter, cement works, etc. etc.. and of course next to every mega data centre. Then massive quantities of waste heat, to 24/7/365, totally pesticide free, “vertical” growing, and also Black Soldier Fly, their larvae eating our outrageous quantities of food waste, before being fed to the fish and fowl. Nuclear power has suffered forty years of denigration and captital starvation, but is clearly now the only way forward, baring a limited input from intermittent renewables.
Of course the Journals site is hosted on these data centers….
@Ash Pleed: Which could be located anywhere.
Iceland and the Nordics have an abundance of RE as examples.
Data Centers located here actually use fossil fuels, no matter how they try to spin it.
If those centers were not here we could switch off even more fossil fuel electricity generators.
That means the costs to us are astronomical.
There is the cost to the economy of fossile fuel imports.
The cost of putting all that CO2 into the atmosphere, of pushing out our ability to meet Climate Change targets and the fines we, the people, pay as a result.
The increased cost we, the people, pay for electricity caused by the greater demand.
And the extra costs of electricity because the ordinary guy subsidies their electricity costs.
The costs of the strain on the grid, which requires grid upgrades. Which we pay for in our monthly connection fees.
With VAT on top of all those increased costs to us.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Spot on!!!
Good on them. Taking sensible action to keep their doors opened for people to continue working. I don’t see the problem. What are they expected to do?
Why take a consumption figure over five years, and use a comparison over a single year? Sensationalism at it’s finest.
There are massive offshore windfarms being planned and constructed all around the coast. All that needs to be done is ensure that percentage output from each project be reserved for the national grid and another percentage ringfenced for Data Centres in Ireland before any is sold elsewhere.
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