Smith calls for total ban on new data centres

People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith has called for a total ban on new data centres.

Smith was reacting to published data from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) which shows that electricity consumption grew by 4.4% in the first six months of 2024.

The SEAI data also shows that 80% of that extra electricity was consumed by newly connected data centres.

In addition, this does not appear to take into account the extra electricity consumed by rapidly expanding data centres that are already connected”

Smith noted “at first glance, the new data from the SEAI seems to show that, despite electricity consumption growth, greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation seemed to fall by 17%. However, closer examination of the data reveals that electricity imported from Britain increased by 84%. This means that 14.4% of all electricity consumed here is imported from Britain.”

“What is revealing is that the emissions arising from the generation of this imported electricity are not included in Ireland’s data.They are counted in Britain’s emissions. So claims of significant reductions in emissions from electricity generation are deeply flawed to say the very least.”

She said “this data demonstrates once again the hugely distorting and damaging impacts of data centres in this state. The atmosphere doesn’t care about the Government’s ‘creative accounting’. The extra emissions, whether generated here or in Britain, are still pushing temperatures ever higher. “

“Out-of-control data centre development in Ireland is driving up electricity consumption and emissions. Data centres now consume more electricity than every home in urban areas in the state. Ireland is an outlier in the scale of data centres allowed onto national grids. Data centres here now consume over 20% of electricity versus an international norm in the region of 3%. Furthermore, forecasts that data centres will consume 30% of electricity from the national grid by 2030 now look conservative. “

She said that data centres will “make it almost impossible to meet climate targets.”

“This is completely unacceptable in a spiralling climate crisis and we need a complete ban on new data centres,” she said.