Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 5 October 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Energy Charter Treaty, Energy Security, Liquefied Natural Gas and Data Centres: Discussion (resumed)

Mr. Jim Gannon:

I think I mentioned that there was a data centre connections policy already in place. We have an ongoing dialogue with EirGrid, our team and its team, about connections policy. The consultation with industry was open for a number of weeks during the summer months. It is important to note as well that in what we brought out to consult on - it was in the form of a proposed decision - we noted that one of the options open to us and which will always remain open to us is a moratorium on connections if deemed necessary. There were, however, a number of other options there, and we favoured at that point in time an option that asked the data centre industry what it could bring along with its demand that could mitigate some of the challenges we see in front of us. I said "colocation" earlier. On-site generation would be considered colocation. It literally means the same site. One of the factors we considered was bringing the demand closer to where the generation is more generally, and that would not necessarily be on the same site. When I said "colocation" earlier, that is what I meant. Generation on the same site is just that.