While the use of data is undoubtedly a crucial part of modern life, like everything, it must be done within our planetary boundaries and our legally-binding emissions reduction obligations.

Progress in decarbonising Ireland’s electricity supply is being undermined by the energy-intensive trajectory of data centre development and the associated increase in emissions.

Read An Taisce's Policy Position on Data Centres through this link. 

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Why are Data Centres a Climate and Energy Issue?

The annual growth in the storage and processing of electronic data is a major climate and resource consumption issue both globally and in Ireland. As of the end of 2024, there were 92 operational data centres in the Republic of Ireland, with the majority of these being located in the Greater Dublin Area. Numerous others are at various stages of the planning and construction processes.

This proliferation of data centres has largely gone unchecked in Ireland, as has their power consumption, which increased 400% between 2015 and 2022, by 31% between 2021 and 2022 alone and 20% between 2022 and 2023. As of 2023 data centres consumed 21% of Ireland’s total metred electricity. This is up from 5% in 2015 and 18% in 2022, and it represents more electricity use than all urban households in Ireland combined. Data centre energy use is very high in Ireland relative to that in other European member states.

In 2022, for example, data centres used 18% of Ireland’s electricity while data centres in the Netherlands, the next largest data centre power user in Europe after Ireland, used only 6% of the country’s electricity.

Such enormous power demand has a very significant carbon emissions impact and will utilise a very large amount of Ireland’s growing renewables capacity. Consequently, the rapid pace of data centre growth is contributing to our status as per capita climate laggards.

The Government Statement on the Role of Data Centres in Ireland’s Enterprise Strategy is the only current national level policy on data centre development. While it supports the continued growth of the sector, it does not seriously consider the climate impact of data centre energy demand. Despite being repeatedly utilised as a basis, framework and justification for further data centre development, the Statement was never subject to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) per EU Directive 2001/42/EC. Furthermore, given the significant and wide-ranging climate and environmental implications of data centre development, we consider that the Statement falls within the ambit of the Aarhus Convention and should have been subject to public consultation, which, as far as An Taisce is aware, it was not.