Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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234. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 151 of 4 March 2025, if he is satisfied that the EPA "Ireland's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections 2024" report and the SEAI "Interim National Energy Balance 2024" report included demand from direct demand from data centres for natural gas which were identified as a "blind spot" by the author of a report published on 10 December 2024 (details supplied). [29845/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepare greenhouse gas projections on an annual basis, with the most recent report on greenhouse gas projections (2024-2055) published in May 2025. All input assumptions are reviewed annually across sectors and this process involves detailed discussions with all relevant Government Departments.

Direct gas usage by the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) sub-sector, which includes data centres, is taken each year from the latest full National Energy Balance and used as the start-point for the EPA projections. The SEAI are working with the CSO on the publication of metered gas demand of data centres to satisfy evolving EU requirements. Future projections begin with this historical data and then capture potential growth in demand as well as the potential impact of current and planned policies and measures on future energy use.

SEAI's interim National Energy Balance 2024 captures all natural gas supplied through Ireland's gas network in 2024, based on data from Gas Networks Ireland. SEAI publishes the interim National Energy Balance annually in early May to provide details on the supply and transformation of energy products in Ireland in the previous year. The full National Energy Balance is published annually in September, which builds on the interim data by adding details on the breakdown of energy demand over different sectors and sub-sectors of the economy.

The EPA’s projections published in May 2024 (2023-2050 projections) included potential growth in electricity demand by data centres aligned to EirGrid’s Generation Capacity Statement 10-year Median scenario forecast. Future gas-usage is an uncertain and evolving situation. The latest EPA Ireland’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections report 2024-2055, published in May 2025 includes an additional assumption relating to projections of future gas use. The assumption uses Gas Networks Ireland’s (GNI’s) Low scenario of “Annual large new industrial & commercial loads” demand forecasts from the latest Network Development Plan 2023. This scenario is used as it incorporates data centre GNI customers with connection agreements already in place. A detailed input assumptions document outlining the assumptions across all sectors will be added to EPA publication in June 2025.