Ireland has failed to grow its energy supply network — IDA

CEO defends growing number of data centres saying Ireland needs to grow energy supply though offshore wind

Wed, 20 Sep, 2023 - 16:02

Alan Healy

Ireland has failed to grow its energy supply network to meet the demand of data centres which are a key element of the country's digital economy, the IDA Chief Executive Michael Lohan has said.

Speaking to business leaders at the Cork Chamber Business Breakfast, Mr Lohan said Ireland's focus should be on growing its energy supply infrastructure through offshore wind farm developments. His comments come as planning permission was granted this week to Amazon for three new data centres in Dublin.

It led to a warning from the environmental organisation Friends of the Earth that such developments could be using 30% of Ireland’s energy supply within the next 10 years.

Speaking to RTÉ yesterday, Oisín Coghlan, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Ireland said they were concerned that Ireland was already heading towards 10 times the European average number of data centres, even before the recent approval.

"Of course we’re going to have data centres, we just don't need to have every data centre that's going in Europe. The other country that has anything like ours is Singapore – 14%. We're heading to 30%," he said.

However, defending data centres, Mr Lohan said Ireland now has significant technological infrastructure that has set the country on a new course and opened up the digital economy. "In order to support that digital economy data centres are key infrastructure. I know there is a debate over data centres and the value of them. But we are starting the conversation from the wrong position," he said.

"If you look at a country like Denmark, relatively similar in size to Ireland in population terms. Denmark has a really diverse energy supply, they are well known for their offshore wind and their local and regional networks. What is the scale of Denmark’s energy capacity compared to Ireland? The answer is that it is three times that of Ireland’s," Mr Lohan said.

We have failed to grow our infrastructure in terms of energy supply. That is our core issue. It is not about demand, it is an energy supply issue. We need to scale that and offshore wind gives us that potential.

Mr Lohan, who took over the role of CEO in April, said that decarbonisation and the digital transformation were key elements for Ireland's future development. "That twin transition requires, not just capital deployment, but human deployment. It requires innovation as to how we are going to make that transition digitally and sustainably," he said, adding that enterprises that do not progress on the path to digitisation and decarbonisation will "simply be left behind".

Speaking to a capacity crowd in Cork, Mr Lohan said that Ireland continues to attach strong investment despite a range of challenges including Brexit, covid and the War in Ukraine. He said that in Ireland’s South West region, the IDA has 229 client companies, employing 52,000 people directly and that IDA has a target of 118 investments under their current strategy.

"To date, we have delivered 105 investments and significantly 26 of those are, almost 30%, have been new name fresh investment into the region and have the potential to deliver more than 9,000 new jobs. And that growth is across technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and financial services," he said.

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