Data centres now use as much power as all urban homes

Construction work in progress on a data centre at Little Island, Cork. There are around 70 data centres currently in operation in Ireland.

Ireland’s current industrial policy cannot be squared with environmental goals, a leading energy expert has said, with data centres now using as much electricity as all the homes in Irish cities and towns.

It comes as Eirgrid announced an amber alert on the electricity grid due to low wind power generation.

According to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), 18% of metered electricity in 2022 was used by data centres, the same percentage as urban homes. Rural homes used 10% of all metered electricity in 2022. 

Data centre electricity usage jumped by more than 30% in 2022 compared to the previous year.

There are around 70 data centres in operation in Ireland, mainly around Dublin, with a further 30 in planning. Around 2.2m homes use metered electricity, according to the CSO. 

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While data centre electricity usage has grown significantly, the opposite is true of homes. In 2022, urban homes reduced their usage by 10%, with rural homes using 9% less than the year before.

Large energy users overall, which include data centres and other industry, saw their consumption jump by 20% in 2022.

Last year, Eirgrid ruled out new data centres in and around Dublin until 2028, while the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) said in late 2021 that it would impose a moratorium on new ones if it deemed necessary to do so.

Paul Deane, senior research fellow at MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centre for energy, climate, and marine at University College Cork (UCC), said the figures show that "something has got to give between industrial and environmental policy". 

'Something has to give' 

The figures are surprising, he said.

"We have gone through one of the worst energy crises in Europe in the last 40 years, yet Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe to actually increase its electricity consumption during the energy crisis. 

This was at a time when we were encouraging householders and businesses and firms to reduce their energy use. But at the same time, we have an industrial policy in Ireland that needs a significant increase in electricity consumption.

Although previous worries around the potential strain on the grid for the winter have been reduced with the country bringing in backup generators, their sheer usage is a big problem for Ireland's climate ambitions, he said.

That is especially so with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warning that the country will fall far short of the 51% emissions reduction target by 2030, he added. 

The EPA said that as well as the likes of agriculture and transport, electricity faces a big challenge to decarbonise in the coming years. Mr Deane said:

It's very difficult to reduce our pollution coming from the power sector while increasing the demand for power at the same time. So something has to give. Are we following environmental policy in Ireland or do we want to follow industrial policy?

"Ireland has a challenge because they are both leading us in different directions. It's just an overall question of priorities. Are we prioritising emissions reduction or economic growth? The figures here are pointing towards economic growth, which is leading to a significant pollution problem coming with. It's a difficult political decision."

In response to the CSO's figures, Environment Minister Eamon Ryan said every single data centre will have to play its part in bringing down the amount of carbon produced.

"Every sector has to live within the climate's limits, there's no sector that gets an out. Data centres are a really important beneficial sector for our country, we have a huge advantage by having them here in terms of the digital industries based here that come with it.

"We can deliver the clean electricity that will give them a sustainable future here, but we can't break the climate budget in the meantime, so we do have to make sure that they fit within it rather than blowing it," Mr Ryan said.

He said innovative ways would have to be found in coordination with data centres and highlighted plans to use the heat produced by these facilities for heating systems in local hospitals or housing developments.