Lynn Boylan: Yes. A moratorium on data centres isn’t as risky as continuing to build them
We’re long past time for a moratorium on data centres.
There are certain things that should be a given in a decent civilised society. A roof over one’s head and affordable electricity are things that everyone should expect. However, the sheer scale of data centre development here is jeopardising both of those necessities.
An example from west Dublin neatly illustrates both. To facilitate new housing development, a substation was planned to enable connection to the grid. However, by the time the substation was built, the capacity was swamped by requests from data centres, leaving no room for housing developments to connect. That investment to the grid cost €100 million and benefited data centres disproportionately. But instead of the data centres footing the bill, households were on the hook for the cost of this infrastructure.
The industry makes technical arguments that centralised data centres are more efficient than servers distributed across office buildings, and often points out that if development does not happen here, it will simply happen elsewhere. At a time when nearly 6,000 children don’t have a place to call home, and more than 320,000 households can’t afford their energy bills, the Government’s industrial policy prioritises data centres’ needs, making it harder to address the housing crisis and harder to afford energy in the cost-of-living crisis. The question is not whether data centres have a role in our economy. It’s whether that role should come at the expense of non-negotiables.
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Often, the debate about whether we should have more data centres devolves into a debate about the importance of the tech sector in our economy. There is a false impression that limiting the number of new data centres will somehow mean the tech companies will abandon the billions they have invested and move their European headquarters elsewhere. But that perspective ignores the threat that additional data centres themselves pose to our economy. As the internet adage goes: every accusation is a confession. A moratorium on data centres isn’t nearly as risky as continuing to build them. The pace of data centre development endangers our energy security and with it the ability of our economy to function and even essential services to run.
Documents published by the energy regulator make for sober reading. Our gas supplies could be at risk as early as the winter of 2032/2033, when official predictions show that data centre demand will make it impossible for the country to import enough fuel for the rest of our needs. Similarly, Cabinet was warned earlier this year about the impact data centres have on the stability of our electricity system.
This is only scratching the surface of the negative consequences of the Government’s data centre policy. Data centres are cannibalising our renewable energy, making it harder to meet our climate targets, which means billions of euros in fines down the line, not to mention the consequence of a warming climate. And, they are using our limited water supplies in an age of increasing droughts.
At its most basic, Government policy should make people’s lives better, not worse. If the Government was so confident that data centre development benefited the people and our economy, it would have commissioned a cost-benefit analysis to back up its position. Instead, it unabashedly commissioned KPMG to conduct just a “benefit analysis”, excluding a frank look at the downsides of data centres and their implications, to justify the decisions they had already taken.
The Government’s approach has been like putting a firefighter in charge of fires that he himself keeps starting. Every few months, it is warned of some new grim problem arising from its approach to data centres, before devising some elaborate emergency response. But if the fires keep coming, perhaps it’s time to stop fighting them and instead, finally address the root cause.
Lynn Boylan is a Sinn Féin Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Dublin
Malcolm Byrne: No. If we stop building data centres, they will be built elsewhere
Ireland should be ambitious. We can become the heart of a global green digital infrastructure ecosystem. We can be a leader in the development of the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence and advanced computing: technologies that can positively transform so many aspects of our lives from healthcare to transport planning to weather prediction.
Our world now runs on data. Every day, the average Irish citizen interacts with a data centre hundreds of times without realising it. Mobile phones. Bank records, payments, financial transactions. Health records. Student records. This newspaper relies on the transmission of information through data centres to put it together and if you are reading this online, you are using a data centre. We expect the data to be delivered reliably and at speed.
Data centres provide economies of scale for data storage and transmission. They replaced the model of having storage servers in our homes and offices. A centralised system is more energy efficient than a distributed system.
Reliable digital infrastructure is also vital for an expanding tech sector, which currently underpins about 170,000 direct jobs in this country.
Ireland needs a far greater abundance of energy coming from renewable sources – wind and solar. That is not just for technology but for everything we do and want to do. This is critical to meet our climate obligations but increasingly also from an energy security perspective. This debate should be about how do we generate more of that green energy and more rapidly rather than restricting what we can do with what we have.
At present, any new data centres in Ireland must be powered by at least 80 per cent renewables. We should grow that to 100 per cent but also appreciate how data centre developers can help us reach those targets and contribute to greening the Irish grid faster for everyone. The development of co-located renewable energy parks, where the data centre builds or connects with the wind or solar farm and has efficient battery storage systems on site, is the new model. The Private Wires Bill currently going through the Oireachtas will support this.
[ The data centre dilemma: AI growth and Ireland’s energy needsOpens in new window ]
Our electricity grid is under pressure; it requires, and is getting, significant investment (much of it from taxes generated by the tech sector). The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU), Ireland’s independent energy and water regulator, acknowledged at the Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy in May that while data centres bring significant asks of the grid, they also contribute heavily through tariffs and contributions to the construction of infrastructure. The CRU has also stated that higher electricity prices here cannot be attributed to data centres.
Ireland’s vision should be to say: we can manage the storage and transmission of data in a way that protects that data from misuse; where it is used to solve local and global challenges; where an abundance of renewable energy powers our digital infrastructure and where energy generated from data centres is used to power district heating systems.
Those who oppose data centres need to be honest and set out where they believe our data should be stored, and whether Ireland should or should not lead in a data-driven world. If we halt our investment in digital infrastructure, domestic and international clients and capital will simply look to build elsewhere. China is on track to double its data centre capacity by 2030 and 70 per cent of the energy for its data centres comes from coal.
In an era where data security and sovereignty is increasingly important, we should be ensuring that European citizens’ data will be stored securely in Europe. Banning data centres here is shortsighted. Setting out requirements to incentivise their development in a way that supports the expansion of renewable energy and storage, as well as investment in the grid, is a far more positive message to send.
Malcolm Byrne is the Fianna Fáil TD for Wicklow-Wexford and a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy
