Data Centres

4. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment in light of recent reporting on data centre energy consumption, water use, carbon emissions and their impact on household energy bills, if he is confident in the Government’s current strategy and if he is proposing any changes to it; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65969/26]

The Deputy should maybe replay my answer to the last four questions but I understand why this is an area of interest. I thank him for tabling this question. Our industrial electricity demand is primarily concentrated in our digital economy. I say this because we are not a large industrial nation. We do not make trains or cars. We do not have heavy industry here. Our heavy industry is ICT. Other countries in Europe have large heavy industrial bases and use energy for these. Part of our competitiveness as a country, and our attractiveness, is because of the expertise of our people and the digital economy. A critical part of supporting jobs in the economy and future growth is supporting activities such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and financial services, right down to public sector digital services. The economic footprint that the ICT sector brings, which I mentioned earlier, and I am talking about ICT in general, is about €104 billion in gross added value. This is about 20% of Ireland's economy. It is significant but it has to be managed appropriately. The large energy user action plan is the way forward. We will always keep it under review. It is very clear now with regard to new connections that there have already been connection agreements. As mentioned earlier, about 23% of our energy is used by large data centres and large energy users. Going forward from the adoption of LEAP, it is very clear how new connection agreements would be granted. I do not grant them; they are granted independently of me, and rightly so. It all has to be balanced. To answer the question directly, we published the policy and adhere to it. It is constantly kept under review. My big focus as energy and climate Minister is accelerating renewables, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and getting our bills down, while also ensuring that we can continue to attract indigenous investment and foreign direct investment.

It might be a bit tedious answering the same question three times but there is a reason that the first question asked by each of three Opposition climate spokespeople has been on data centres. It is because of the level of concern that exists in the Opposition. We see around the world that people are waking up to the impact that data centres are having in their communities, from energy use to water use. The Minister spoke about industrial strategy. We hear time and again that we have no heavy industry here and, therefore, we can have a big data centre industry but the Minister for agriculture uses the exact same argument. He used it on the radio the other day when trying to justify no changes to the status quo in the agriculture industry. We cannot have it both ways. Even in Germany, where there is heavy industry and a lot of jobs attached to it, it accounts for about 25% of the country's energy use. We are going to exceed 25% over the next few years given the trajectory. This is why we are concerned and we just want to make sure the Minister is staying on top of it.

Deputy Ahern is perfectly entitled to raise the issue. I welcome the fact it has been raised and note it has been raised by three of the Opposition parties. It is a matter that is appropriate for discussion. This is why, in fairness, when I came into this portfolio we looked at the situation and what existed before and moved forward with the large energy user action plan, which is a plan-led approach, looking at regions also. This is the appropriate way to do it. I mentioned to Deputy Daly earlier the PR 6 capital investment in the grid. This takes into account, over the next five- or six-year period, all of the growth that we need across various sectors. It also shows what we need to deliver infrastructurally, such as the north-south interconnector and the Celtic interconnector. It is a year late because of weather and other issues but it needs to be delivered. The acceleration of renewables is critical. In the first five or six months of this year, about 50% of our electricity was generated through renewables. It is certainly going in the right direction, with solar being a major part of our mix. Offshore will be the next critical part and we are expecting planning decisions over the course of the next few months to get these projects into construction between now and 2030. It will be a massive game-changer for the country.

Absolutely, and we are all focused on bringing through more renewable energy. Offshore wind is vital. Our issue on this side of the House is that the renewable energy we are creating at the moment is being gobbled up by data centres. We also know the impact this is having on energy bills. We also know how much water they use. I know it is a relatively small percentage but there is an unfairness at the heart of how they are treated, whereby ordinary people were asked to abide by a hosepipe ban this summer whereas data centres actually doubled their water consumption during that time. It is in situations like this that people feel the unfairness. They see they are not getting a fair shake. That is why we are bringing up the issue. We completely acknowledge the importance of underpinning jobs in the ICT sector but, on the other hand, we have to be concerned about some of the types of jobs these hyper-scale AI data centres are going to create and whether it is a good thing. We need to keep this under review. We spend half our time here talking about how we will regulate and rein in these big ICT companies while, on the other hand, we are doing everything we can to facilitate their continued growth. We have to watch this.

Any connection application made goes through an independent process and it can be accepted or declined. Not every connection application that is made is approved. That is a fact, and if we look at how many new data centres have been built or delivered in the past few years, there are very few. Someone referenced Sweden. If we look at Finland, it has received extremely large data centre investment, to the tune of about €20 billion. Obvious we have to step through what is appropriate and what can be managed and manage overall demand, while really focusing on expanding our grid capacity for everybody, for the good of jobs and our people and, very importantly, to ensure we have more renewables in our system to reduce bills. This is where the focus is at. Deputy Ahern is perfectly entitled to raise the matter. With regard to AI regulation, it is a debate that is current and that will continue. It is important that it is done appropriately.