LAST UPDATE | 20 Sep 2023

THE GRANTING OF planning permission to three more data centres in Dublin does not necessarily mean they will be built, according to Environment Minister Eamon Ryan.

Despite opposition, Fingal County Council gave Amazon Web Services (AWS) a green light to construct the centres on a north Dublin campus.

They have a combined power load of 73MW on a 65 acre land-holding at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15.

In addition to the three granted planning permission, one AWS data centre is already operational at the campus while construction work continues on two others.

When asked about the decision, the minister said he would have to look at the decision more closely, but said that just because permission is granted, doesn’t necessarily mean they will be built.

He said there are “complex issues” to deal with first, such as how data centres can “live within the climate limits”. 

Ryan said he cannot come to the UN General Assembly and talk about taking a leap, all the while we are “tripping ourselves up at home in terms of busting our emissions targets”. 

The government does want tech companies, which provide 150,000 jobs, to set up in Ireland, said Ryan, who added they can’t be outside this climate parameter.

“They cant operate if they are putting energy security at home at risk,” he said.

“What we need to do is make sure they play their part in decarbonisation, that some of the backup power supports our grid when the wind isn’t blowing, that we use some of the waste heat to help provide district heating,” said the minister, 

“They can’t just operate in isolation as if climate change doesn’t exist and if energy security and renewable power isn’t the way forward. They have to have low carbon renewables as their power supply,” said Ryan, stating that the companies know they will have to live within the climate laws set down. 

“I will work with the companies to make sure that happens,” he concluded.

Oisín Coghlan, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth, an organisation which opposed the latest application, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the plans pose “a triple threat”.

“It’s a threat to our energy security, the security of our power system, it’s a threat to our pollution limits and, to be honest, it’s a threat to the credibility of this government on climate.

“The government announced through EirGrid what they said was a moratorium on new data centers around Dublin because that’s where it’s particularly risky for the grid,” he said.

“This is driving a coach and horses through that.”

Plans V Policy

The planning authority has included a condition that prior to the operation of the data centres, that AWS have in place a Corporate Purchase Power Agreement which demonstrates that the energy consumed by the data centres is matched by new AWS renewable energy generation here.

The council state that the new renewable energy projects shall be located in Ireland and the amount of electricity generated by the renewable energy projects shall be equal to or greater than the electricity requirements of the data centres in operation at any given time.

This, however, doesn’t reassure Coghlen, who says the centres “displaces renewables for the rest of us”.

“It would just blow our carbon budget, blow our pollution limit.”

He said there is a lack of coherence between the country’s climate targets and the government’s policy. 

The Labour Party has called for a moratorium on building data centres, and called for an expert working group to be established to ‘climate proof’ future developments.

The call comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is at the Climate Ambition Summit in New York.

A spokesman for AWS said: “The proposed development represents a significant investment that will create additional direct, indirect and induced economic and employment benefits, in addition to those that have already been generated by AWS.

“As such, it is fully consistent with the Government’s preference, as set out in the Government Statement on the Role of Data Centres, for data centres to be associated with strong economic activity and employment.”

Coghlen emphasised that objectors to the plans are not opposed to all data centres, but feel the current rate at which they’re being built is unsustainable.

“We now are heading for 30% of our electricity system being for data centres by 2030″, he said.

“The highest elsewhere in Europe is 3%.”