Promises to stand with local people to fight tooth and nail to block ecocidal megaproject planned by Google in Grangecastle in South Dublin.
- New figures show the jump in electricity consumption last year was entirely due to data centres.
- Data centres now consume over a fifth of our electricity supply, cancelling out all the gains in energy efficiency under the government’s Climate Action Plan
- To reach climate targets, we need a ban on any new data centres so renewable energy can be conserved for essential uses
- People Before Profit pledges to fight against the construction of any new data centres, including the proposed new Google data centre in Grangecastle, Co. Dublin
Commenting on new figures showing that data centres consume more than a fifth of our electricity supply, People Before Profit Environment Spokesperson, Paul Murphy TD said:
“The new figures published by the CSO today show the continued exponential growth in power consumption by data centres. They now consume 21% of our electricity supply, up from 5% in 2015. This massive increase is completely cancelling out all the gains in energy efficiency from retrofitting by households as well as the cutbacks in energy use working class families have been forced to make because of the cost of living crisis.
Data centres and a few other large business users are now using more electricity than all Irish households put together. Yet the emphasis from the government is on ordinary people being more energy-efficient.
It is increasingly obvious that data centres are the elephant in the room that must be tackled. There must be an immediate ban on the construction of any more data centres and strict limits must be placed on consumption by existing centres.
To reach legally binding emission reduction targets and avoid climate meltdown, we need every megawatt of renewable energy that comes on stream in the coming years to be ring fenced for essential needs, rather than wasted on training AI or gathering marketing data for big tech companies.
The Government has refused to place any real limits on data centre development despite repeated warnings from Eirgrid, the CRU, the government’s Climate Advisory Council and the Department of Enterprise that data centre growth is out of control.
They also voted down a People Before Profit’s Private Members Bill three years ago that would have blocked any further data centres from being developed.
Plans have been submitted for a massive new Google data centre in Grangecastle so this will be a major election issue in my own area of South Dublin County Council.
People Before Profit is promising to stand alongside local people and to fight tooth and nail to block this ecocidal megaproject.”