Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank our guests for their input. I would like to ask the CRU about the greater use of gas and LNGs. Even after all the discussion, how does the regulator think it is compatible with our climate goals? In its submission, the regulator stated it would be prudent for the review of our energy security to include an examination of the future role of LNG. Many people watching will find that worrying because there have been campaigns against LNGs being brought into the country, following on from the successful campaign to ban the production of fracked gas in this country. There is a concern that it will be imported. I understand that not all LNGs are fracked, but a significant number of them are. Will the regulator examine that distinction in its review of the role of LNGs?

Ms MacEvilly says the CRU did not consider a moratorium on data centres unlike, say, Singapore, where 7% of the grid was being used up by data centres. Singapore is another country that relies very much on FDI and the tech sector but it introduced a moratorium because it considered data centre energy use way too much. We are not introducing a moratorium, yet the members of the tech sector who spoke to the Business Postjust over a week ago said they did not support relocation facilities outside Dublin and do not support the condition of building on-site generation to power their operations. What would happen, from the point of view of the CRU, if data centre businesses were to say to the CRU that they do not want those conditions and will not adhere to them? Dr. McGowan said it is not necessarily about moving outside Dublin but about colocation. Could he expand on that slightly?

My next question to the CRU is about water. At the outset Ms MacEvilly told us the CRU has a role to protect the interests in water. There have been startling revelations from data centre. Facts show that from 500,000 l to 5 million l a day can be used by one single data centre. Could the witnesses comment on any concerns they may have about the expansion of data centres in this country and the security of our water supply?

I turn to EirGrid. We debated earlier in our private session EirGrid's assertion that potentially 70% of the power in this country could be used by data centres. It has been said that that was misquoted at this committee. I refer Mr. Foley to a letter from EirGrid to CRU of 27 May 2021 and to the paragraph that finishes with "A data centre with a load of 60 MW would be comparable to the load usage of a large town ... like Kilkenny". The figures are in that paragraph. I just did a calculation and it amounts to a load of 69.02% of the grid, which is not 70% but not far off it. That is where that calculation came from. It was not plucked out of the air and was not mischievous; it actually came from EirGrid itself. In the same letter - and this is what really baffles me - EirGrid says "Ireland's electricity system was surely not planned to be, nor designed to be planned to be, a system which seeks to serve the needs of the global citizen for increased data supported by an ever proportionately smaller non-data centre commercial, industrial and domestic load". I am really alarmed by the difference in the tone from EirGrid to the CRU from May until now. Mr. Foley talked about what the data centres have to "bring to the party", which was his phrase, or the dialogue EirGrid has had with them. Could he please tell us when that dialogue took place and if it was prompted by the stark warning EirGrid gave in May about the load that data centres were putting on the system? Could he comment also on what that dialogue entailed? I know he said EirGrid got a positive response in that some of the data centres are willing to locate and some are prepared, if there is high demand, to power down, but those are not the reports we are getting back through the media. There is a disconnect and a real change in the tone.

I will put one very last question to the witnesses. This acute crisis in energy supply is facing everybody across Europe, and the cost increases are being borne largely by the public. It is harder for the public to bear them than it is for business, but there will be considerable investment in the generation and network assets that will be required to bring data centres onto the national grid. Can the witnesses tell me who will bear the cost of that investment? Will it be the taxpayer, the ordinary people and the person paying for his or her electricity or gas bills or will it be the data centres themselves?