Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Government published its revised policy statement on Data Centres in July 2022. The statement’s revision was designed to ensure that the decarbonisation and digitalisation of Ireland’s economy and society are complimentary and in harmony with environmental policy. In Ireland more than anywhere else, data centre operations are at the very centre of these transformational twin transitions in our economy and society. The revised Statement is also cognisant of the current constraints on our energy sector and outlines principles for sustainable data centre development, providing clear guidance to decision makers in the planning process and encouraging the data centre sector to implement decarbonised energy solutions and to increase efficiency.

The recently established data cable between Ireland and Iceland is valuable strategic telecommunications infrastructure, which, when combined with other cable infrastructure in Iceland, will connect Ireland to Northern Europe (Denmark). While the shifting of compute loads between data centres in different countries is complex and involves multiple considerations, the data cable will help to build significant additional communications redundancy. As an island nation on the edge of Europe, Ireland depends heavily on having best in class telecommunications infrastructure. This cable will be important for opening new business opportunities between Ireland and Northern Europe, and Iceland.

With respect to data centre developments, Ireland has the potential to supply the required renewable energy for energy intensive businesses such as data centres. There has been important progress lately in developing Ireland’s renewable electricity sector. For example, in the country’s first offshore renewable electricity auction in May, four offshore wind projects were provisionally approved and competitively priced contracts, equating to over 3GW generating capacity and equivalent to a quarter of projected 2030 electricity demand. It is expected that the successful projects will begin operationalising from 2027.

The auction results are hugely encouraging in terms of Ireland building competitive renewable electricity capability and capacity, and when combined with the large potential from floating wind electricity off the Atlantic coast (30GW plus as outlined in the Programme for Government), highlight the real opportunity for the country itself to develop a very large, renewably based data centre sector.

In the longer term, the Government is open to developing partnerships in the future which may help to take advantage of opportunities to support the wider economy and increase our engagement with international partners. However the current focus is on managing the existing energy constraints and continuing engagement with stakeholders across Government and industry to put together an effective plan to provide certainty going forward.