Ireland Tells Data Center Developers To Bring Their Own Clean Energy - CleanTechnica

Ireland, a major European hub for data centers, faces significant energy supply challenges due to the high electricity demand of these facilities, which consume about a quarter of the country's power—more than all urban households combined. Most new data centers prefer locations near Dublin for workforce and connectivity reasons, but since 2021, the local grid operator has warned that the existing infrastructure cannot support additional demand without risking widespread blackouts. Consequently, no new data centers have been built in the Dublin area for four years. To address this, Ireland’s Commission for Regulation of Utilities introduced a policy requiring new data centers to generate or store enough clean energy on-site to meet their full electricity needs and to supply excess power back to the grid. Additionally, at least 80% of their electricity must come from new renewable sources, while utilities must report regularly on grid capacity, renewable energy use, and carbon emissions. In response to these challenges, the Irish government announced the Large Energy-User Action Plan (LEAP) on January