Renewable Island: Energy infrastructure at core of Echelon's plans

Echelon says its Arklow facility will be Ireland's first Green Energy Park, as Damien Gaynor of Echelon outlines to Jillian Godsil

Echelon's DUB10 data centre facility in Clondalkin, Dublin, is designed to provide over 90 megawatts of IT load, situated less than 20 minutes from Dublin Airport.

Echelon's plans for Arklow rest on a commercial proposition: a large electricity customer can help make renewable generation viable while paying for infrastructure that serves the wider grid. Damien Gaynor, chief marketing officer of the Irish data centre company, argues that the sector's contribution needs to be assessed alongside its demand for power.

The company's DUB20 campus in Co Wicklow is intended to bring those elements together. Echelon describes it as Ireland's first Green Energy Park, combining a data centre with shared electricity infrastructure, onsite solar generation, battery storage and backup capacity capable of supporting the national grid.