Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A data centre in Dublin Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

Opinion Ireland's green energy plans have a big tech data centre problem

Dr Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie question whether large tech companies should really be the priority in the government’s energy plans.

IRELAND MUST RAPIDLY decarbonise its economy in order to meet its current climate goals, evidenced especially by the recent Government Climate Bill.

The current Climate Action Plan plans for the country to achieve 70% renewable energy by 2030, largely through onshore and offshore wind farms. 

At the same time, however, growing attention on data centres and their energy demand has led to some scepticism about the state’s ability to reach these goals without significant adjustments.

Data centres are currently responsible for 1.58% of Ireland’s carbon emissions, are projected to use 29% of Ireland’s total energy by 2028, and Eirgrid has warned that by 2026 the twin (smart) demands of data centres and electric cars could exceed Ireland’s energy supply.

Pressure on global tech companies to reduce their emissions has led to some of them, including Amazon, committing to be 100% renewable over the next decade. But are these companies just piggy-backing on national efforts to decarbonise, and if so who stands to benefit and who carries the costs?

Corporate power purchasing

Last month the SEAI launched a public consultation on the Government policy on Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs).

Simply put, these are mechanisms through which large energy users – the likes of data centres, large tech companies – can buy up power directly from energy developers, such as wind farms.

The Government hopes that CPPAs will account for approximately 35% of all new renewable energy generation by 2030.

The rationale is that this will shift costs away from consumers and increase renewable energy supply. A closer look suggests that this is far from self-evident. First, how can we be sure that CPPAs are not just siphoning off renewable power from projects which would be going ahead anyway?

This is called ‘additionality’ and has been a longstanding and controversial issue within climate change policy worldwide.

In the Irish context, there is not currently a lack of demand for wind energy at the national level.

The relatively low costs of wind energy mean market demand isn’t really a major problem anymore, and there is existing and growing interest from international investors in Irish wind energy.

The State is fully on board for rapid onshore and offshore expansion between now and 2030 and is creating a very attractive environment for the large wind sector.

Second, even if there is genuine additionality, we have questions regarding whose interests are actually served by these CPPA financed projects.

They will mean that new renewable energy capacity is secured solely by corporate buying power – in the case of companies like Amazon and Facebook, incredibly significant.

The main corporate purchasers to date, and likely up to 2030, of renewable energy, will be the large tech companies who seek to secure energy for their data storage requirements.

If the power generated through CPPAs is going to be primarily (or solely) used by these companies to power new data centres, as opposed to mitigating existing emissions, then this will make our national decarbonisation challenge even greater as the best wind resources are used up.

Who wins, and who loses?

The only real beneficiaries would therefore seem to be those corporates purchasing renewable energy. Arguments that consumers will benefit from reduced electricity costs thus need to be balanced by potential costs to the Irish state (and climate) in not meeting emissions and renewable energy targets.

This is a matter of the public interest as our commitments to decarbonise by 2030 are enshrined within EU and international agreements, and should be prioritised ahead of the economic interests of a particular sector.

Third, does the move towards CPPAs further marginalise the potential for a different energy system that more directly involves and serves local communities and delivers more balanced regional development?

Ambitions for community energy have historically been low in government, with the emphasis being on ensuring social acceptance for private wind development, rather than communities having a direct and meaningful stake in the development of energy projects.

Under the proposed CPPA policy, the role of communities will remain minor. There are other community-focused models which the Government could support in our shift towards decarbonisation.

Related to this point, there is a real risk that the existing community measures within state-subsidised wind energy projects (including compulsory community benefit fund and engagement protocols), will be bypassed through CPPAs.

Community stakeholders will thus likely bear the brunt of the negative effects of large wind/solar installations while receiving little measurable or observable benefit. This is likely to exacerbate what has been historically strong opposition to large wind (and solar) development in rural parts of the country, further undermining the state’s aim of reaching 70% renewable energy by 2030.

A resonant example is the case of the Meenbog Wind Farm in Donegal, being built by Invis Energy, which entered a CPPA with Amazon but was linked to a catastrophic peat landslide. Amazon has been largely shielded from connection to this event, while still promoting itself – and receiving state endorsement – for Ireland’s renewable goals.

Finally, the SEAI public consultation process on CPPAs was designed for and directed at industry stakeholders rather than a wider public.

This says a lot about how these financial instruments are viewed within Government – as solely technical, rather than carrying significant implications for how renewable energy is developed, who benefits from it, and who carries the burdens.

The more fundamental point here is that despite the rhetoric, state agencies, departments and Government politicians continue to consider equity and public participation as optional extras within the low-carbon transition. This is a mistake.

Dr Patrick Bresnihan is Assistant Professor in the Geography Department, Maynooth University. Patrick Brodie is a media scholar and FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University. The deadline for submissions for the SEAI public consultation closes on Wednesday 31 March.

VOICES LOGO

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
33 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute motojack
    Favourite motojack
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:38 PM

    Ahh yes watch big tech get tax breaks and exemptions while the plebs pick up the tab

    224
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute alphasully
    Favourite alphasully
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 8:52 PM

    @motojack: well, it is ireland, do you expect any different

    40
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Motherofthree
    Favourite Motherofthree
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 9:51 PM

    @motojack: that’s it, you have a good rant on this digital platform that would exist without data centres….. oh hang on….

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Lorrimore
    Favourite Lorrimore
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:44 PM

    It’s a global climate crisis if they don’t build in ireland they don’t build in ireland they will build else where, Ireland’s climate is the cheapest to run a data centre so to put them elsewhere would do damage to the worlds climate

    98
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gerard Heery
    Favourite Gerard Heery
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:51 PM

    @Lorrimore: spot on our cool cold climate means they don’t need the air-con on all the time,

    62
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Aidan Finn
    Favourite Aidan Finn
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:07 PM

    @Lorrimore: yup. Our climate means a modern cloud data center uses half the electricity of a classic air con building. The likes and Amazon and Microsoft are being green to cut costs. If you are ever lucky enough to visit one you’ll see how focused on efficiency that they are.

    69
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Lars
    Favourite Lars
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:01 PM

    Probably the same will happens as in the Netherlands: Solar and wind farms are built with massive subsidies from the tax payers. These “green” energy suppliers then enter an exclusive contract with the new local data centres (sometimes even these were subsidised) to buy all the green energy. Making the corporations look good/green at the taxpayers expense…

    72
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Lars
    Favourite Lars
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:05 PM
    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Colm Molloy
    Favourite Colm Molloy
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:34 PM

    If the ordinary Joe could sell electricity to the grid, and get a decent price for it, s/he would be encouraged to put up a small turbine, solar panels, water turbines on streams on their property or anything that produces electricity.
    Food and biological waste can be converted into a flammable gas, bottle it, use instead of electricity, or use it to make electricity.
    Solar panels on every farm shed, factory, petrol station, apartment building, house,school, government building, train and bus station, etc.
    Methane from every cow shed in the country to power electricity producing turbines.
    Another hydroelectric scheme like on the Shannon, or a few maybe, or ones where you pump water up a hill at low cost and run it down through turbines at peak times.
    There is a way, there are many ways.

    62
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Diarmuid O'Braonáin
    Favourite Diarmuid O'Braonáin
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 12:05 AM

    @Colm Molloy: we have a govt which is so far behind the rest of the world. Think about it we have all the biggest tech companies on our doorstep and completely under utilised. Govt is run by the civil servants and most of the civil servants got the foot in the door doing a civil service exam. No college degree or experts in certain fields. It will be 50 years before we will get anything of what you have said above done. Take as an example we don’t even have a glass bottle(never mind plastic) cash deposit recycling system.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James1234
    Favourite James1234
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:35 PM

    Anaerobic digesters fed with grass, food waste, anything really, produce biogas and biomethane(natural gas). All money stays in Ireland and we get energy security. This is the solution

    59
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Da Dell
    Favourite Da Dell
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:02 PM

    Estimates showing that Datacentres will consume 8% of the worlds electricity by 2030 and 25% by 2050 and most of the data is data about people not business related.

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Byrne
    Favourite Brian Byrne
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:07 PM

    @Da Dell: data about people is big business

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Da Dell
    Favourite Da Dell
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:18 PM

    @Brian Byrne: Yes unfortunately, selling peoples data is big business for some.

    15
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Motherofthree
    Favourite Motherofthree
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 9:47 PM

    @Da Dell: let’s look at it from ireland’s perspective. Data centres could be up to 30% of Irelands electricity by 2050 but ireland is aiming for 70% renewable by 2030. It accounts for 1.5% of irelands carbon now, that will bring it to less than 3% if we are still at 70% but in all liklihood it will be higher than that by 2050.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Niall Donnelly
    Favourite Niall Donnelly
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 8:36 PM

    The Green Party are not interested in the people of this country. Green policy’s shouldn’t hurt the average person. We could bring in policy’s within months if they wanted. The Uk just scrapped a similar plan due to the cost in grants.

    We could get people and farmers install solar panels allowing them to earn money by adding it to the grid.

    All new houses to have solar regardless if it heats a cylinder or not.

    Deposit on all glass, plastic bottles and cans

    Green policy’s shouldn’t need grants. The system is flawed because people are ripped off because of grants

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute roscommonrebel
    Favourite roscommonrebel
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:13 PM

    People need to watch Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”, it really exposes all these “green” con artists.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK_EpFeNlvY

    37
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Byrne
    Favourite Brian Byrne
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:53 PM

    Going green energy wise is really just the tip of the iceberg to tackle climate change. Highly recommend people watch seaspiracy and David Attenborough a life on our planet to discover ways they can make a real change to benefit the planet.

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mickety Dee
    Favourite Mickety Dee
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:35 PM

    @Brian Byrne: Let’s face it, the elephant in the room is that there are just too many humans on the planet. The rest is just tapering around the edges

    45
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Byrne
    Favourite Brian Byrne
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 7:44 PM

    @Mickety Dee: yep unfortunately your right that’s the elephant in the room. But there are changes that people can make that will help to slow the rate of destruction down. But your right eventually the human population will have to decline if earth has any chance of survival.

    19
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nicholas Grubb
    Favourite Nicholas Grubb
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 8:17 AM

    @Brian Byrne: As per your suggestion yesterday watched it. Very good, but misses out the obvious solution and that is the use of insects, in particular the Black Soldier Fly, whose larvae should be feeding our farmed fish and poultry, having in Ireland alone, eaten our one million tonnes of food waste a year. Old peat station, SMR, data centre. Then waste heat to hydroponics, fly farms and then the fish and the fowl and the rest of the bog area for purification and sequestration. All a total no brainer, except we cant it seems speak the N word.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Byrne
    Favourite Brian Byrne
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 9:13 AM

    @Nicholas Grubb: if your talking about feeding larvae to farmed fish then i don’t think you watched the documentary or you skipped by the part about farmed fish .

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nicholas Grubb
    Favourite Nicholas Grubb
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 11:07 AM

    @Brian Byrne: Dozed off for a bit of it.! Thanks for correction.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Valentine Kane
    Favourite Valentine Kane
    Report
    Mar 29th 2021, 6:35 PM

    Fix it

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nicholas Grubb
    Favourite Nicholas Grubb
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 8:09 AM

    Not more “hunt away the big tech/big data”, they’re wrecking our Climate Action here on Planet Ireland. But Oh wind power is so cheap. Rubbish the lot of it.
    Wind power is the most expensive power when correctly measured 24/7/365 at the consumers’ meters, not at the generator terminals. The reason for this is its gross intermittency, meaning it all has to have immediate stand by plant to fill in, let alone the massive capacitance and grid costs, associated by such a low grade power source generated asynchronously. All of course to be solved by having a massive grid all the way through Europe, hoping that it is blowing in Athens when not in Athenry. However, we are not living in China and people in Europe, not least Ireland, have “Back Yards”. Little tantrum from ESRI the other day. If we don’t all stop objecting, our electricity is going go up by 230%, it already being the most expensive in the EU.
    The other thing about the wind, is follow the money. Who is putting mega bucks into it, but the big fossil fuel corporates, eager to have us over the metaphorical oil barrel for filling in all the gaps.
    Small, local, modular, factory built, molten salt Nuclear is the only way out of this, as at along recognised by the Canadians. Actually invented fifty years ago, but no good for bomb making and would have put the coal miners out of business.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian Lenehan
    Favourite Brian Lenehan
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 12:15 PM

    SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) now make nuclear power feasible for a population such as Ireland’s. Nuclear power is the safest, cleanest and greenest energy source available and it’s ridiculous that nuclear power generation is specifically prohibited by S.18 of the Electricity Regulations Act 1999. Ireland is forever going to be a laggard in our climate action endeavours if we systematically discount what is the best possible solution. Remove that section of the act and perhaps it might be worth the efforts of the market-leaders in SMR technology to make proposals that will help us. While that ban exists they won’t bother.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nicholas Grubb
    Favourite Nicholas Grubb
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 1:13 PM

    @Brian Lenehan: What no one is picking up on, is the massive potential of putting an SMR or two in each of the peat station locations, where you already have the grid connect etc.. Next to each a data centre. Each of the new ones uses approx 200MW 24/7/365 and the last thing we want to do post pandemic is hunt away them and their masters, so vital to our economy. Next to the SMRs and data centres, using the waste heat, a vast area of 24/7/365 hydroponic grow houses, growing vegetables, salads, fruits, cut flowers, etc.. Then next to them the Soldier Fly farms and next to them eating the larvae, the fish and the fowl, whose present production norms of blatantly raping the natural environment, are biggest ecological scandals of our time.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute NormalJoe
    Favourite NormalJoe
    Report
    Mar 31st 2021, 4:14 PM

    Data centers could provide heating and hot water free to every house in Dublin and remove over a million fossil-fuel heating systems with a little bit of joined up thinking and the waste heat Data center are currently wasting they are an asset we are not using!

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Johannes Gaultier
    Favourite Johannes Gaultier
    Report
    Apr 2nd 2021, 12:51 AM

    @NormalJoe: Heating is nice to use but the trouble is routing the heating from data centres to homes is a huge infrastructure commitment.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ian Hester
    Favourite Ian Hester
    Report
    Mar 30th 2021, 12:06 PM

    Not a mention of the biodiversity loss, such as that of the Meenbeg Windfarm in Donegal was responsible for the bog slide etc… They just do tget it, Martin on about biodiversity loss before the election to w woe the Greens who now also seem to be with Martin and Humphreys to turn rural Ireland into to a concrete jungle of Data Centers driven by Windfarms…. Time to get that lot out…. Thers not a scintilla of Green in any of this government…. Leave thr countryside alone,you city slickers…

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Molloy
    Favourite Martin Molloy
    Report
    Mar 31st 2021, 5:37 PM

    So when you cut through all the non sequiturs, fake definitions and general all-round “Ooh Matron” pearl clutching, what these overqualified bozos seem to be saying is: “If you generate more power, people will use it. And that’s terrible!!!”
    Is it all that surprising that “Corporate Power Purchasing Agreements” only attract the interest of, er, corporates? Isn’t the clue in the name?
    We, along with the rest of the advanced world, are embarking on an age of information-based industries, even more pronounced than hitherto, and electrically powered cars. We want to get rid of all our petrol/diesel powered vehicles by mid century. That means we need to generate shed loads of new energy. Faffing around with percentages based on today’s consumption figures serves no purpose. It diverts attention from the real issue (How do we create more power without killing the planet?) to the petty consideration of “Are Amazon/Facebook/Google stealing all our electricity?”
    No. They’re buying (another word for purchasing) what they need to run their operations here. They may need a lot of it, but that’s the world we live in. We need to decide HOW we generate the vast amount of energy we will need in the future; what’s the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to use it and how it gets distributed to where it needs to be.
    Bringing in BS jargon terms like “additionality” without defining what they mean just obfuscates the issue. And if you don’t know what obfuscates means, you can look it up in the dictionary. Unlike “additionality”.
    Should we go nuclear? Are microgrids part of the answer? Can the ESB construct a system to allow people to transfer temporary surpluses from their own micro-generation efforts to the grid? These are the things we need to discuss.
    Additionality, me hole!

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Molloy
    Favourite Martin Molloy
    Report
    Mar 31st 2021, 4:33 PM

    When are we going to dispense with the BS that Ireland is a great place for data centres because of our climate? It’s just not true.

    Have a look at where the world’s biggest data centres are located. They’re all in hot places. America’s two biggest DCs are in Nevada FFS!! Their next four biggest data centres are in Virginia, Utah and Chicago. None of them having a climate anything like ours.
    Check it our for yourselves.
    https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2020/09/8-largest-data-centers-world-2020/

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Johannes Gaultier
    Favourite Johannes Gaultier
    Report
    Apr 2nd 2021, 12:50 AM

    @Martin Molloy: What else would be the reasoning for them to be in Ireland?

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds