Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 9 May 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I do not believe this information is collected centrally. The Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Environment, Climate and Communications do not have it and I do not believe any other entity knows exactly how many data centres there are, where they are, what their energy usage is and what the demand is. I had assumed the CRU would have that information because data centres currently account for 15% of our energy use and will, potentially, account for up to 30% of energy use in the next number of years. It is astonishing that no entity has oversight and visibility of exactly what data centres are using.