Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was glad to be quoted earlier this week in a news article in the Financial Times, in which I said we must ensure data centres live within the really strict climate limits we all must live within. Interestingly, this summer I attended an informal meeting of the EU Environment Council, at which the best international scientists, including those from the IPCC, outlined their assessment that there are approximately 200 GT of remaining emissions if we are to stay below the 1.5° benchmark. There is a 50% probability of living within that, which is incredibly tight. We cannot underestimate the scale of the challenge. As I said in the newspaper earlier this week, data centres can live within climate limits and bring real benefits to our country. We should not turn our backs on the development of data centres, but we should make sure we become a real world leader in how we deliver them in a low-carbon or zero-carbon way. This can be done through extensive coupling of renewable power to data centres and the provision of backup.

I do not agree with what Deputy Murphy mentioned with regard to the example in the US, where new data centres might be fired by gas. I explicitly wrote to Gas Networks Ireland to say that this is not the strategy we should adopt. I do not believe gas-fired data centres could live within climate limits and that is why, as climate Minister, I gave a clear policy direction that this is not what we should be doing. Furthermore, to go back to what I was saying earlier, we should be focusing on battery storage, good interconnection, good grid systems and good use of anaerobic digestion. One of the developments happening in our country as we speak is a rapid increase in the potential availability of low-carbon gas from anaerobic digestion, which could be used as backup fuel to give data centres the security they need for a low-carbon operation.

Our biggest constraint is the electricity grid. That is sometimes hard to understand because you think it is just the wires to something. Actually, it takes time and is a real challenge to build out a grid in sufficient speed. Regardless of what your view on the issue of data centres is, the electricity grid is a real constraint in our country and we have to address it. We also have to be a leader in delivering sustainable data centres. We can then use artificial intelligence that will have uses that may be of real benefit. I am interested in working on the old issue of energy access and electricity to the likes of countries in Africa. I would see the application of artificial intelligence mapping satellite and other data to give a really good assessment of how you build out that grid. This is an example of how such technologies could be used to address some of the underlying problems.

I will finish with what I said earlier. Mario Draghi's report is clear and simple. It is true that if Europe wants to be competitive and to have a stable and secure economy, we need to invest in the grid and the sort of infrastructure that would make that happen. Ireland, more than any other country, should do this because we benefit significantly from the digital industries that are here. However, it has to be zero carbon.