Ireland’s goals to host the cloud and harvest the wind
Emmet Lagan, director of Lagan Energy Engineering.
In our work developing Green Data Valleys across Ireland exploring co-located electrolysers and the integration of renewables with digital infrastructure one insight is becoming increasingly clear: while hydrogen in transport continues to dominate headlines, the real cost barrier, especially capital expenditure, remains formidable.
Yet a growing consensus is emerging among digital infrastructure architects: the first real movers in clean hydrogen may not be on wheels, but in racks. The tipping point in the hydrogen economy could come not from mobility, but from megabytes.
For years, Ireland’s hydrogen debate has revolved around transport the greening of buses, trucks, and ferries. But as the energy intensity of the digital economy deepens, the future of hydrogen may well be found in the data halls of our cloud infrastructure.
Data centres are energy-intensive, resilience-dependent, and reputation-sensitive. As artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital services expand exponentially, the pressure to decarbonise computing is mounting. In this context, hydrogen offers something uniquely powerful: resilience, renewables, and reputation in one clean package.
Hydrogen can provide data centres with zero-emission backup power, support grid balancing, and reinforce Ireland’s green credentials. The next generation of facilities could evolve into hybrid energy hubs consuming, storing, and even supplying renewable energy to the grid.
The scale of Ireland’s data economy is immense. Data centres already consume around 21 per cent of national electricity roughly six terawatt-hours a year and demand is expected to triple by 2030 as AI and cloud computing continue their rapid ascent.
Yet, the electricity grid is straining under the load. Connection moratoriums, regional bottlenecks and planning delays have become critical barriers, stalling both data centre expansion and renewable integration. Ireland’s legally binding target of 80 per cent renewable electricity by 2030 is now under growing pressure. Unless digital and energy strategies are better aligned, both ambitions digital and decarbonised may falter and Ireland could lose competitive advantage.
Ironically, the very challenge that constrains Ireland’s grid could hold the key to a cleaner, more resilient future. During periods of high wind generation, particularly at night or during storms, the grid curtails excess renewable energy that cannot be absorbed.
That surplus could instead be used to power electrolysers, splitting water into green hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen could then be stored and used in fuel cells or turbines during peak demand, or as clean backup power for data centres, replacing the diesel generators that currently ensure uptime. In effect, Ireland could transform wasted wind into a renewable reserve a new kind of energy security for its digital economy.
Ireland’s enterprise strategy now outlines a clear framework for data centre sustainability. New projects must demonstrate strong economic and employment benefits, use the grid efficiently, and add new renewable capacity to the system rather than simply drawing from it. Crucially, they are encouraged to co-locate with renewable energy sources such as wind farms or hydrogen production sites, supported by private wire connections or long-term power purchase agreements.
This integrated model where data centres grow alongside clean energy production underpins our Green Data Valleys concept, regional ecosystems where digital and renewable assets develop in tandem, supporting both competitiveness and climate goals.
Ireland’s ability to balance its digital expansion with sustainability will depend on a mix of technologies. Private wire connections can link data centres directly to nearby wind or solar farms, bypassing congested grid nodes. Corporate power purchase agreements can finance new renewable capacity and lock in green supply. Electrolysers, located on or near data campuses, can convert curtailed wind power into hydrogen for storage or use in clean backup generation.
Battery systems can provide short-term balancing, while flexible demand programmes that Lagan Energy are developing, H₂ Nexus models can allow data centres to reduce their load during periods of grid stress, supported by dispatchable on-site hydrogen or battery systems.
Realising this potential demands more than technology; it requires policy courage. Incentives for curtailed-to-hydrogen conversion, fast-tracked planning for electrolysers, and regulatory clarity on hydrogen’s use in backup generation are all essential. Siting alignment between data centres and renewable zones must become deliberate, not incidental. And cross-border hydrogen corridors linking Ireland with Northern Ireland, Scotland and France could unlock both export potential and energy resilience.
Yet there is a deeper national question beneath all of this. Ireland must not become digitally dependent, renting compute the way currently imports fuel. Hosting the world’s cloud should not mean surrendering control of its digital or energy destiny.
Digital sovereignty must sit alongside energy sovereignty as a core pillar of national doctrine. Both will determine Ireland’s ability to remain not just a hub for data, but a nation that owns the means to power and process it. The convergence of the digital and energy economies is now so complete that one cannot be secured without the other.
The cloud and the wind are no longer separate stories, they are merging into one. Ireland’s ambition to be Europe’s digital host depends increasingly on its ability to harvest and store its renewable energy.
Hydrogen Ireland quote - The evolution of Ireland 4.0 will depend on a cloud that is not only digital, but green, powered by renewables, sustained by hydrogen, and rooted in sovereignty If Ireland can match its race to host the cloud with an equal race to harvest the wind and enshrine both digital and energy sovereignty as national principles it will not only store the world’s data but shape the global blueprint for clean, independent, and resilient digital power.
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