Ms Marie Donnelly:

No. It began with "digital". It is concerned with co-location. We in the council have acknowledged that as we go forward in our transition, we need to move away from using fossil fuels as our main source of energy because of the emissions linked to such fuels and that we therefore need an alternative and decarbonised source of energy.

The direction of travel there will be decarbonised electricity. Electricity will become our energy vector going forward into the future, but with this is the way we use electricity. We have already had discussion about demand, the time of usage or whatever. One of the important elements about electricity is how we use it. A key contributor to efficient usage of electricity is the automation and digitalisation and the reality is that they depend on data centres. The Senator is quite right. The data centres, if one can imagine, are the floor on top of which one can put all of the various apps for this, that and the other which will allow us to automate home heating systems, lights going on or whatever it might be. In fact, they are inextricably linked. It is an element. The Senator is quite right that we need to understand that because we will not be able to decarbonise without digitalisation.

There are certain elements that we need to look at that can perhaps be beneficial. The big data centres - the names that we know - invest vast sums of money in being as efficient as possible because it is all money for them.