Campaigners urge moratorium on data centres

Data centre electricity demand here could rise to 30% by 2030.

Climate campaigners have called for all political parties and general election candidates to implement a moratorium on new data centres, claiming they are increasing fossil fuel demand and jeopardising the country's electrical grid and climate goals.

At a demonstration outside the DataCentres Ireland Conference, held at Dublin's RDS on Wednesday, campaigners from Friends of the Earth Ireland and a number of environmental groups cited CSO figures which found that data centres used more than one-fifth (21%) of our electricity in 2023, making Ireland "a complete outlier in Europe in this regard".