Mr. Jim Gannon:

I thank the Deputy. EirGrid's forecasts in the generation capacity statement recognised some time ago that data centres will form a large part of the electricity demand in the country for a number of years to come. The first exercise in looking at how we could mitigate some of the risks associated with data centres and the challenges they pose was a new connection policy that EirGrid brought into being in 2019. That policy was to examine data centres and see how flexible they could be. More recently, in the past month and a half, in dialogue with EirGrid, we brought out a further consultation with a draft direction that challenges data centres to be better energy citizens and to bring solutions to the table. It proposes to grade data centres that can bring their own generation to the table and support security of supply. Moving down that grading system, it calls on data centres that can respond to signals in the marketplace to turn down their demand at different stages.

In parallel to that, we and our colleagues in the utility regulator of Northern Ireland, our partners in the single electricity market, have started looking at what is called scarcity pricing but is really additional pricing where demand and supply are getting a little thinner, and examining how can that be felt by industrial and commercial customers.

A final piece that is important to note is that EirGrid has, for a number of years, engaged in securing demand-side units. Those are industrial and commercial units that can enter into a contract with EirGrid to turn down on demand and be rewarded for it.

There are approximately 600 MW cleared to do this for the winter of 2022-23. There are already a number of commercial and industrial opportunities for units to participate and supply a service through a contract. There also are a number of measures in existence and under way to interact with data centres on how they become better energy consumers. Many of the participants in industry are quite happy to interact on this basis and explore the opportunities that are there for them.