Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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253. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount expended by her Department in each of the past five years to date in 2021 on electricity costs in tabular form; and if she will provide an additional schedule that sets out all energy costs associated with their ICT hardware, that is, servers and so on in tabular form. [60945/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The table below shows the amount expended on electricity across the Department of Social Protection for each of the last five years including 2021 to date.

Regarding the total energy costs for all ICT hardware, servers etc. the table below shows the amount expended on electricity to power the locations housing the Department's two Data Centres (which serve all of the Department’s I.T. needs) and are located in Con Colbert House and Goldsmith House.

It should be noted that both Data Centres are housed in general-use office buildings and that the figures are for the entire building rather than just the Data Centres as these areas are currently not separately logged.

We have, however, based on energy consumption figures been able to estimate the costs associated with running the Data Centres in these locations. See table below:

Con Colbert House, Cost Estimate = average €0.07 per kWh

Goldsmith House, Cost Estimate = average €0.07 per kWh

Covid 19 and the resulting need to adopt new work practices and to satisfy Public Health Guidelines has had an impact on our energy spend in 2020 for the following reasons:

- All DSP offices remained open in 2020 as DSP services are essential.

- The Department had to operate out of four additional locations to facilitate additional staff working on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment with social distancing.

- The PCs of remote working staff were permanently powered on to facilitate remote log on.

- In order to facilitate social distancing some offices operated on a shift basis which led to buildings needing to be heated, lit and ventilated for longer periods.

- The ventilation systems were operated for extended periods in all offices in accordance with public health advice.

- Many offices worked weekends and other extended hours to deal with the very high volume of claims.

- Despite staff working remotely, the utility cost of opening our offices is largely a fixed cost once there are staff throughout a building, even with reduced numbers.

From 2009 to end of 2020 the Department has achieved energy savings of 42% surpassing the 2020 Public Sector Energy target of 33%. The Department was awarded certification in ISO 50001:2018 Energy Management in June 2021. ISO 50001 is an internationally recognised standard in best practice energy management. The Department is the first Government Department to achieve accreditation in this standard.