Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

I will talk about the development of solar generation and maybe also onshore wind generation. I do not believe I can talk specifically about the projects in the Cathaoirleach’s local area. Overall, there are targets under the climate action plan for 8 GW of solar and 9 GW of onshore wind generation, resulting in a total of 17 GW. Currently, we have around 7 GW of installed capacity, so there is growth expected in respect of these types of project to reach the targets set out in the plan. Obviously, this ties in very much with the decarbonisation journey.

Having been involved for many years on the generation side of the business and having spent the early part of my career in generation, I am aware that a huge effort was put into community engagement. I cannot speak about the specific projects but am happy to put the local community in touch with the stakeholder engagement team. I am sure it will be very willing to engage on the matter. It is fair to say, however, that existing infrastructure that can be utilised, such as transmission infrastructure and the distribution network, is beneficial. New lines might not need to be designed and built if there is existing infrastructure.

On data centres, I do not know whether there is a typical data centre size. They range from the very big right down to smaller ones connected to the distribution system. In the EirGrid documentation on installed capacity, one will see that EirGrid has contracted, at transmission level, data centres with a capacity of over 2 GW. We also have data centres that were connected at distribution level and contracted before the CRU rules came in. I am referring to the revised direction to the system operators in November 2021. I believe we have 37 data centres of different sizes connected at distribution level. I am not in a position today to compare the power used by one with the power used by a typical house, although it is of course the case that data centres have particular requirements when it comes to electricity loading. They represent what is part of wider increasing demand on the electricity network over recent years, both at transmission and distribution levels. They are obviously a significant contributor in this regard.