Dublin’s data centers are consuming more electricity than all of its urban homes
The sprawling data centres edging Dublin are consuming more electricity than all of the city’s homes, leading to a rethink on whether the tech boom has outworn its Irish welcome.
The country that turned into a digital hub for tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok is now questioning the payoff as these giants continue scouting global locations to feed the AI revolution. Ireland is grappling with the repercussions, one being a moratorium by the grid operator on new data centres near Dublin until 2028 due to concerns over potential blackouts.
These colossal data storehouses accounted for 21% of Ireland’s power consumption last year, figures from official records indicate—no other nation has reported such a heavy load to the International Energy Agency.
Describing Ireland as a “microcosm of what many countries could be facing over the next decade, particularly with the growth of AI,” is University College Cork’s energy expert Paul Deane.
Meanwhile, activist Darragh Adelaide, 26, residing in a Dublin neighbourhood just a stone’s throw from Grange Castle Business Park – a giant data centre cluster – is waging war against Google’s expansion dreams.
Protests Adelaide, linking the colossal energy use of these facilities to soaring electricity bills for the public.
It’s kind of an outrageous number of data centers,
Ireland has been a magnet for global tech giants since the “Celtic Tiger” era, thanks to tax perks, a skilled English-speaking workforce, and EU membership. These factors have made technology an integral part of Ireland’s economy.
The majority of data centres are clustered around Dublin, benefiting from quick connections vital for their operations. Additionally, Ireland’s cooler climate is advantageous for maintaining computer temperatures without excessive water use.
However, these once inconspicuous buildings are now under scrutiny as their energy consumption soars, contributing to some of Europe’s highest electricity costs for Irish residents. The Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland has raised alarms over pollution from data centres’ generators impacting the Dublin area.
In 2021, regulators took action after forecasts showed data centres could consume a third of Ireland’s electricity within the decade. They announced that Dublin’s grid had reached capacity, halting further data centre connections.
The government has since encouraged tech firms to expand beyond the capital and explore self-sufficient power solutions.
In June, Adelaide’s campaign against data centres saw him elected to the South Dublin County Council for the leftist People Not Profits Party. The council subsequently rejected Google’s proposal to build another data centre, a decision which Google appealed in September.
This resistance from local planning authorities in the Dublin area has left data centre developers frustrated.
Dermot Lahey, who oversees Digital Realty’s data centre implementation in Ireland, said:
What’s preventing us from being able to leverage that is the fact that the power constraints that we have, or the power moratorium that we have, is greatly impacting our ability to provide space for customers.
As winter approaches, the smoky scent of peat fireplaces permeates County Offaly, west of Dublin in the Midlands.
It’s here that some data centre developers, hindered by Dublin’s restrictions, now see potential. A report commissioned by County Offaly’s government promotes the bog-filled region as a place to “create thousands of green jobs” and rival “Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris in being an anchor for data centres powered by renewable energy.”
However, 83-year-old farmer and conservationist Brian Sheridan remains sceptical.
He’s witnessed this region transform once before, from the vast wetland known as the Bog of Allen to barren brownfield sites as people dug up trenches of dense peat soil, or turf, for homemade fuel. .
Sheridan, strolling along a boardwalk over carpets of moss and sedges in the now-protected Clara Bog Nature Reserve. In the past, large-scale peat extraction helped to secure Ireland’s energy independence and provided employment for many people in the industry, said :
The bog started disappearing and it wasn’t being replaced,
However, this came at a significant environmental cost, as the air was polluted and the ecosystem suffered greatly. Bogs, which naturally absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, were stripped bare, contributing to climate change.
Furthermore, the burning of peat is even more polluting than coal. Ireland has since banned the sale of peat and closed its last peat-fired power plants.
Nevertheless, Bord na Móna, the state-supported company behind the peat extraction, still controls vast areas of former bogland. The company has rebranded itself as a provider of renewable energy, installing wind turbines and solar farms, as well as collaborating with Amazon to build a data centre near the village of Rhode.
Despite multiple requests, Bord na Móna declined to comment on its plans, leaving some residents feeling uninformed. Amazon also chose not to discuss specific projects and has repeatedly hinted that it may redirect its new data centre investments away from Ireland.
In County Offaly, a tech-fuelled dash is happening to capture the power of wind on its eastern fringes. Microsoft has thrown its weight behind the effort by entering into a power purchase agreement with Norwegian energy giant Statkraft.
The company is constructing nine immense wind turbines on land that once held bogs. Statkraft’s main man in Ireland, Kevin O’Donovan, insists data centers are a boon for the country’s shift to renewable power.
He said:
For a lot of the mainland European countries, demand is going down and that’s actually leading to a challenge to roll out renewables.
“Whereas in Ireland we have demand that’s increasing because the country is growing economically and obviously a part of that is the data center growth.”
However, not all locals are convinced by such optimistic talk. A cohort from the Lemanaghan Bog area, graced by a 7th-century monastery, cast a skeptical eye on the proposed Bord Na Móna wind farm’s impact on culture and nature.
A resident named KK Kenny voiced his concerns directly to the taoiseach Simon Harris this autumn in Dublin. Championing biodiversity, Kenny finds the idea of data center firms retreating to other countries agreeable.
He said:
They say, oh, they’re going to pull out,” adding fervently, “That would be a great thing. We can’t sustain them.
Some locals near the site of Amazon’s planned data centre in Rhode are warming up to the concept. One resident, who already travels to Dublin for a data centre job, sees potential benefits. Another local, eyeing opportunities, said:
We’re all for change,” with Gerard Whelan adding, “I’ll get work because I build houses. It’s a domino effect.
The fate of Ireland’s data centres may hinge on the incoming national government set to take charge early next year.
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Dublin’s data centers are consuming more electricity than all of its urban homes, source
