The Environmental Protection Agency has begun an investigation after receiving complaints about noise levels coming from a data centre in Clondalkin, west Dublin.
The EPA said it received the first complaint regarding noise at Echelon Data Centres’ DUB10 site on July 15th and since then, had received 12 noise complaints.
Aaron Jeffrey, a Clondalkin resident, said he first heard the noise, which he described as a low frequency, “unrelenting” hum, in late July.
The 25-year old said he has tried ear plugs and noise-cancelling headphones with music playing but said the “sound is so persistent and I know it’s there ... You hear it over everything. There’s no stopping it.”
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He said during the period of high temperatures during summer, he was hearing the noise “nearly every night”. After that it became “a bit more intermittent”.
However, he said “then there was another weekend where it was really, really bad.”
He said the noise is predominantly heard during the night but also in the morning and afternoon.
Jeffrey said he heard the noise on a regular basis up until last week.
At first, his girlfriend thought the noise was someone vacuuming directly above them in the middle of the night. However, he soon realised the noise was coming from the data centre.
“When the sound is going, it really is going,” he said, adding that at times, it could last for two or three hours and is “pretty detrimental” to his quality of life.
“Not getting sleep is not great for anyone ... People, and myself included, become very irritable, lack of energy.”
He said he had to “almost switch my sleep schedule, because it is less frequent during the day”.
He said this was also affecting his daily life. He posted about the noise on a Facebook group and received a lot of comments.
“It definitely is affecting everyone from Clondalkin.”
Local Independent councillor and Mayor of South Dublin County Council Francis Timmons said he had received “quite a significant amount” of residents contact him about the noise.
He said it has caused “a lot of annoyance” to residents as well as preventing them from sleeping at night and spending time in their back gardens.
“It’s just not acceptable,” Timmons said.
He said he supports the investigation. “I’m glad to hear EPA is going to investigate it but they need to act very fast.”
The agency said it had engaged directly with the complainants, where possible and the data centre regarding these.
It said it had engaged independent consultants to undertake noise monitoring at noise-sensitive locations.
Echelon Data Centres said it took its responsibilities to the environment and the communities in which it operates “extremely seriously”.
It said, following the complaints to the EPA, it had commissioned external acoustic consultants to investigate reports of “intrusive night-time noise” in the vicinity of the data centre.
“We continued to carry out investigations at the site, following the initial identification and removal of a generator unit being used by a contractor out of hours and further mitigation measures applied to roof-mounted chiller units.”
Following a further complaint to the EPA, it said the investigation team was “mobilised again” on August 31st.
“We expect to have a preliminary analysis of the noise recording which was submitted before the end of the week. This will be compared against our own data gathered onsite.
“The probable cause has been identified and immediate action has been taken to resolve the issue. This is, and remains, a key priority,” it said, in a statement.
Separately, a group called the Kildare Data Centre Awareness Campaign is holding a public meeting in Naas on Thursday evening about data centres in the county.
