Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 30 January 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

General Oversight of EirGrid: Discussion

Mr. Mark Foley:

I have no evidence to suggest, based on our current customers who are very close to it, that AI is going to be abnormally impacting the next two years. As reported in the press, an awful lot of AI investment is going to other countries at the moment. There is a long lead-in time to build these plants. AI is not going to impact the next 24 months, in our view, in terms of what is going to happen in the data centre world. We are very close to these people and we are very confident that the projections we have set out in the generation capacity statement - we put our reputations on the line in respect of that - are very close to the mark.