Amazon granted planning permission for three new data centres
Mike Finnerty 20 Sep 2023
Amazon have been granted planning permission for three new data centres at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15.
The three data centres will amount of 73 megawatts of power, which has led to fierce opposition from environmental groups.
Planning permission was granted by Fingal County Council, with Universal Developers LLC leading the project on 65 acres of land.
Oisín Coughlan, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Ireland, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the project will lead to increased emissions in Ireland.
He noted that plans to bring the Tarbert power station in Co Clare back online this winter would generate 150 megawatts, and said “half of Tarbert will be dedicated to keeping these data centres going rather than keeping our lights going.”
“Of course we’re going to have data centres, we just don’t need to have every data centre that’s going in Europe. The other country that has anything like ours is Singapore – 14 per cent. We’re heading to 30 per cent. It’s already more than all the urban homes in Ireland, twice as many as all the rural homes in Ireland. That’s the power the data centres are using now and we’re heading to double that in the next ten years.”
He said the permission represented a “triple threat.”
“It’s a threat to our energy security, the security of our power system, a threat to our pollution limits. And to be honest, it’s a threat to the credibility of this Government on climate.”
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