Campaigners urge action to stop data centres driving up power prices

Campaigners are calling on Ireland – and the EU – to ensure a proliferation of data centres does not force up household energy bills.

A report by the campaign groups Beyond Fossil Fuels and Friends of the Earth Ireland, published on Thursday, uses the republic as an example of the potential impact of a race to deploy data centres across Europe.

Irish households could pay an extra €726 million to €1.6 billion in total from 2025 to 2034, they estimate – with the range reflecting uncertainty over the pace of renewable energy deployment, electricity consumption, and whether or not a new energy crisis may emerge.

With almost 100 data centres already in place, Ireland has one of the highest concentrations per capita in the world, and they currently account for 22% of the country’s electricity demand, increasing pressure on the grid and the share of gas-fired power in the mix.

However, on the European market, the price of electricity is determined by the most expensive energy source used to meet demand, which is usually gas, whose price is soaring at the moment.

During the last energy price shock, the impact of data centres accounted for around 8.5% of the average Irish household electricity bill, according to the NGOs, who are calling for safeguards to be put in place as the European Commissions aims to triple Europe’s data centre capacity in the next five to seven  years. 

A green mandate

This, they suggest, could be done by requiring the use of at least 80% renewable power, and blocking developments unless they are accompanied by the deployment of “new, local and additional” sources of green electricity.

Irish MEP Lynn Boylan (The Left) wants a “legal framework that structurally prioritises the needs of people over big tech”. Her national party, Sinn Féin, currently in opposition, already supports a 100% green energy requirement.

“We have hundreds of thousands of households behind on bills, and a creaking infrastructure that can barely connect new housing, and electricity prices that are higher than anywhere else in the EU,” Boylan said.

Boylan was one of three dozen MEPs who demanded this month that the Commission change small print in the Data Centres Act that they say obscures the environmental impact of the facilities. 

Two key events are scheduled for the coming weeks: the publication of the EU rating scheme for data centres in early June, and the package on data centre energy efficiency on 22 July. 

However, Beyond Fossil Fuels regrets that the ambitions of the first initiative – which aims to bring the sector into line with the bloc’s climate neutrality goals – have been scaled back, as reported by Euractiv in March. 

(rh, aw)