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Power grab: the hidden costs of Ireland's datacentre boom

11 points by mindracer 3y ago

wkat4242 3y ago
I dont really get the point this article is trying to make. It pulls all sorts of unrelated information in it like the Irish civil war and the poverty in the past, but what's the point really? The datacenters don't offer Ireland much, they hardly provide much employment and they use a lot of electricity. But they have to be somewhere. Ireland is a pretty scarcely populated country with low temperatures as the article mentions so it makes sense to have them there. In terms of its reliance on the tech sector Ireland has much bigger problems like a "privacy regulator" that's nothing more than a string puppet for big tech.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  It would make sense to have them in Norway with its hydro power, cool air and perhaps glacial water cooling.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    Those Irish taxes, tho…
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yes but Norway is not EU. So they can't have their EU headquarters there.
- piltdownman 3y ago
  There is no point. The author, Jessica Traynor, is an Irish poet and creative writing teacher of little renown here in Dublin. The article is syndicated from an incredibly precious periodical called 'The Dial'. Blame the Guardian for being... peak Guardian.
lclarkmichalek 3y ago
The impact on the energy market always seems a tad misstated in these articles. Datacenters are often funded through corporate power purchase agreements, committing them to purchasing power directly from the generator over periods of multiple years. Those CPPAs are often tied to the development of new renewable energy generation (ex: https://www.matheson.com/insights/detail/matheson-advises-brookfield-renewable-on-facebook-corporate-ppa https://www.matheson.com/insights/detail/matheson-advises-br...). Now, that still puts pressure on the grid for transmission, raises the marginal cost of renewable energy, and in cases where the generator cannot meet demand, presumably increases demand on other generation sources. But it makes the “40% of energy being used by DCs” stat seem a little misleading - a reasonable amount of generation exists because of these DCs. (I work for Meta, who’s Clonee datacenter is mentioned in this article)
- piltdownman 3y ago
  EirGrid previously claimed it would be able to allocate 1,800MW of electricity to new data centers, but had been receiving additional requests of up to 2,000MW. They also projected that demand from data centers could account for 27% of all electricity demand in the country by 2029, up from 11% in 2020. https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/All-Island-Generation-Capacity-Statement-2020-2029.pdf https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/All-... Absolute peak energy demand in Ireland is about 5,500MW. 70% of Ireland’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030, without taking into account the footprint of these data centres - so there's a few different perspectives on this one.

11 points by mindracer 3y ago

I dont really get the point this article is trying to make. It pulls all sorts of unrelated information in it like the Irish civil war and the poverty in the past, but what's the point really? The datacenters don't offer Ireland much, they hardly provide much employment and they use a lot of electricity. But they have to be somewhere. Ireland is a pretty scarcely populated country with low temperatures as the article mentions so it makes sense to have them there. In terms of its reliance on the tech sector Ireland has much bigger problems like a "privacy regulator" that's nothing more than a string puppet for big tech.

thriftwy 3y ago
It would make sense to have them in Norway with its hydro power, cool air and perhaps glacial water cooling.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  Those Irish taxes, tho…
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yes but Norway is not EU. So they can't have their EU headquarters there.
piltdownman 3y ago
There is no point. The author, Jessica Traynor, is an Irish poet and creative writing teacher of little renown here in Dublin. The article is syndicated from an incredibly precious periodical called 'The Dial'. Blame the Guardian for being... peak Guardian.

lclarkmichalek 3y ago

The impact on the energy market always seems a tad misstated in these articles. Datacenters are often funded through corporate power purchase agreements, committing them to purchasing power directly from the generator over periods of multiple years. Those CPPAs are often tied to the development of new renewable energy generation (ex: https://www.matheson.com/insights/detail/matheson-advises-brookfield-renewable-on-facebook-corporate-ppa https://www.matheson.com/insights/detail/matheson-advises-br...). Now, that still puts pressure on the grid for transmission, raises the marginal cost of renewable energy, and in cases where the generator cannot meet demand, presumably increases demand on other generation sources. But it makes the “40% of energy being used by DCs” stat seem a little misleading - a reasonable amount of generation exists because of these DCs. (I work for Meta, who’s Clonee datacenter is mentioned in this article)

piltdownman 3y ago
EirGrid previously claimed it would be able to allocate 1,800MW of electricity to new data centers, but had been receiving additional requests of up to 2,000MW. They also projected that demand from data centers could account for 27% of all electricity demand in the country by 2029, up from 11% in 2020. https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/All-Island-Generation-Capacity-Statement-2020-2029.pdf https://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/All-... Absolute peak energy demand in Ireland is about 5,500MW. 70% of Ireland’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030, without taking into account the footprint of these data centres - so there's a few different perspectives on this one.