Mr. Dara Lynott:

They need to be on 24-7 and there is a requirement for backup generation. We have one of the most resilient electricity systems in the world and the number of minutes that our system goes down means we are near the top of the league for resilience in Europe. Data centres have a requirement for backup generation nonetheless and recent papers I have seen indicate that this potentially provides system services that would allow greater amounts of renewables to be put on the system. That is because there is such a large requirement for backup generation and storage that the storage in itself could potentially provide a significant amount of system services. This is in addition to the likes of what we have seen in north Dublin, with the potential for waste heat to be used in heating systems located near these data centres. That allows for renewable heat to be used and a reduction of fossil fuel use in the heating of homes around those data centres.