Friends of the Earth Ireland is calling on the Government to reconsider its position on the expansion of data centres and to respond to the policy recommendations in new expert research.
The research by Professor Hannah Daly of University College Cork, reveals a stark picture concerning the increased use of fossil fuels by data centres and how this rising consumption of gas by the industry is creating a blindspot in our climate action planning.
Professor Daly’s analysis also points to the injustice of the state’s data centre policy whereby data centres are diverting renewable energy to serve the industry’s growth, instead of reducing the national use of fossil fuels.
Furthermore, this report shows how the emerging phenomenon of data centres plugging directly into the gas network puts Ireland at risk of vastly overshooting our carbon budgets. Friends of the
Earth Ireland believes this research should be a wake up call to decision makers that we urgently need a moratorium on new data centres and the expansion of existing ones until a robust legislative framework is in place. Now is the time for decision makers to reconsider their stance, and ensure that climate action is prioritised in every sector, including technology.
Hannah Daly, author of the report and Professor at University College Cork commented:
“The current trajectory of data centre demand is incompatible with Ireland’s climate commitments. Data centres are growing far faster than the renewable energy procured to meet their needs.
“Moreover, data centres are connecting to the natural gas network to get around constraints in the power network. This is prolonging Ireland’s dependency on fossil fuels and will make legally binding carbon budgets unachievable. This underscores the need for policy interventions that ensure renewables displace fossil fuels rather than fuelling new demand.”
Rosi Leonard, Data Centre Campaigner with Friends of the Earth Ireland said:
“It is clear from this research that the sustainable and simultaneously unlimited growth of Data Centres is a myth. Soaking up 21% of our electricity supply and rising, we are at the coalface of a scenario where Big Tech is uncritically and incorrectly accepted as an unquestioned force for good despite evidence which shows that its unlimited expansion risks pumping far more pollution into our environment than previously thought.
“The State’s policy of allowing unlimited data centre growth is like trying to fight climate breakdown and take fossil fuels out of homes with both hands tied behind our back.
“In order for Big Tech to describe itself as sustainable there would need to be evidence for renewables generation to outpace the growth of energy demand of data centres. But as Daly’s report shows, all of the wind energy generated in Ireland between 2017 and 2023 has been outpaced by data centre growth.
“Data Centres are also increasing their gas consumption as their energy demand grows, building on-site gas generation, and applying for direct connection to the gas grid with seven data centres already plugged in and 22 more in the pipeline for direct gas connection.
“Ireland has allowed itself to become a data dumping ground for corporations like Amazon and Meta. This is creating stark inequalities in our energy system whereby data centres are hoovering up the limited clean energy that is currently deployed. In the same regions of Ireland in which Meta bought the entire electricity output of solar farms for their data centres, over 60% of homes are reliant on oil and solid fuels such as peat or coal. [4] We need a moratorium on data centres in Ireland now before this problem gets any worse.”
Jerry Mac Evilly, Head of Policy in Friends of the Earth stated:
“This expert research completely blows out of the water the PR spin that data centres expansion is in any way sensible or sustainable on both climate and energy security grounds. They are adding more fuel to the fire and increasing reliance on fossil gas and the gas network. Our renewables revolution was planned to get our communities off polluting, expensive fossil fuels, not to myopically serve the unlimited expansion of one colossal industry.”
“When it comes to Programme for Government negotiations, political parties must support a pause on connecting more data centres until the proposed policy framework in this expert research has been implemented and the threats data centres pose to climate and security have been removed.”
