Google data centre refusal should become a national planning standard

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Friends of the Earth calls for South Dublin County Council’s analysis and decision to be reviewed and replicated in all data centre planning applications

Friends of the Earth has called for the reasoning behind the refusal to grant planning permission to Google to expand its Grange Castle data centre complex to become a national standard applied by all County Councils in data centre planning cases. The environmental campaigning organisation welcomed last Monday’s decision by South Dublin County Council, which referenced significant climate and environmental failings and risks that had been raised by Friends of the Earth and other civil society groups. These included:

  • The proposed development fails to comply with key policies and objectives within the County Development Plan, in particular completely unsatisfactory renewable energy commitments on the site

  • The Power Purchase Agreement for renewable energy fails to offset the significant increase in demand

  •  The finding that the total annual energy consumption of c. 883GWh per annum may result in ‘Negative, Significant and Long-Term effects’ on the electricity system.

  • The conclusion that the proposed development is not likely to lead to a sufficient reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

  • A lack of robust energy efficiency measures to reduce emissions in support of climate targets.

  • The absence of several necessary environmental and biodiversity actions required under the County Development Plan.

  • The lack of a connection to the surrounding district heating network

 

Commenting, Jerry Mac Evilly, Head of Policy at Friends of the Earth, said: 

“We strongly support the Council’s rejection of Google’s proposed data centre expansion on the climate and environmental grounds, as raised by Friends of the Earth and other organisations. The Council is entirely correct in not allowing this energy guzzling industry to expand at a time when we know that Ireland needs to rapidly reduce energy demand both on security and climate grounds. We call for its analysis and decision to be reviewed and replicated by other councils and An Bord Pleanála itself.”

“Ireland is becoming Europe’s data dumping ground with more than 20% of our electricity now coming from these data centres. Demand also grew by 20% in the past year, a staggering figure during an energy crisis. The reality is that our renewable energy can't keep up with this pressure from data centres. There are real legal limits on how much polluting emissions we can have in Ireland.

“The planning system is having to deal with completely inappropriate and unacceptable data centre proposals. We are calling for Government to lead and introduce a moratorium in law until we have an effective legislative and regulatory regime and a clean energy system that can handle data centre connections.”

Friends of the Earth is calling for the following:

  • A moratorium: The Government should urgently introduce a legal moratorium on new data centre developments until a robust legislative and regulatory framework is established that ensures they pose no threat to our binding limits on climate pollution or the security of our electricity supply.

  • Manage Existing Demand: Strict limits on electricity consumption used by existing data centres, not only new connections.

  • Prevent Gas Reliance: A prohibition on Gas Networks Ireland connecting any further connection data centres to the gas network given the risks of locking-in long-term use of fossil gas.

  • Renewable Energy and Storage: Data centres should be required to invest in substantive on-site renewables and storage to reduce their dependence on the national grid.

  • Fossil Fuel Phase-Out:  Measures to ensure data centres do not result in additional fossil fuel generation. These must also ensure existing data centres produce a decarbonisation plan to phase out fossil fuel usage, including fossil gas and diesel used on their sites.

  • Speculative Applications: The Government should end speculative data centre applications that inflate expected energy use and strain resources.

  • Transparency: A requirement for the Government to produce transparent information each year on the number and type of current and new data centres, while also ending speculative data centre applications that inflate expected energy use and strain resources.The Government should also mandate annual disclosure of emissions and future projections by data centres.

ENDS

Notes:

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climate Energy Faster and Fairer Climate Action Fossil Free Just Transition System Change