Environmental groups take case over CRU data centres decision

Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of The Earth Ireland, and ClientEarth Limited in High Court bid to overturn CRU policy

It is understood that the objections being brought to the High Court relate to the CRU's ruling that some fossil fuel energy generation can be used to supply power to new data centres. File picture

A prominent Irish environmental grouping has taken a High Court case against the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) in an attempt to overturn the agency’s decision regarding the powering of data centres in Ireland.

Judicial review papers were lodged by three separate groups — Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of The Earth Ireland, and ClientEarth Limited — against the Commission for Regulation of Utilities’ final decision last December on how large energy consumers are powered.

It is understood that the objections relate to the CRU's ruling that some fossil fuel energy generation can be used to supply power to new data centres.

All three environmental groups are represented by solicitors FP Logue.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

A ClientEarth spokesperson said: “I can confirm that ClientEarth filed a case with Friends of the Earth Ireland and Friends of the Irish Environment yesterday, but we will not be commenting until the case is presented to the High Court — which we’re expecting to be early next week.”

FP Logue declined to comment.

Last December, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities lifted restrictions on the establishment of new data centres in regions where the electricity grid was already considered to be under strain.

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities’ long-awaited connection policy for large energy users ruled that new data centres could be built so long as they provided as much power locally as they used, with 80% of that power to come from renewable sources such as wind energy.

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities’ ruling meant that data centres could once again be established, so long as they built renewable installations such as windfarms to provide the same amount of power as used by the centres themselves back to the national grid.

Those installations do not need to be connected directly to the data centres.

The remaining 20% can be supplied from fossil fuel sources such as diesel or gas generators.

Data centres are used to supply processing power for cloud-based services such as social media.

There are about 90 data centres in Ireland, the majority of which are located in the greater Dublin region.