{"id":471912,"date":"2026-05-28T21:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471912\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T21:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:04:15","slug":"data-centres-adding-e360-to-the-average-bills-friends-of-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471912\/","title":{"rendered":"Data centres adding \u20ac360 to the average bills – Friends of the Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rapid expansion of data centres in Ireland has added \u20ac360 to the average person\u2019s bills, Friends of the Earth has estimated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Data centres accounted for 22% of all Irish electricity use in 2024 and that figure could hit 30% by 2030, powered by growing demand for AI and other technological services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said data centres are crucial to Ireland\u2019s economic well being<\/a>, insisting the country risks being \u201cleft well behind\u201d without them and the AI they power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Friends of the Earth spokesperson Rosi Leonard said their huge energy consumption means they are \u201cincreasingly a cost of living issue\u201d, adding that their use of 22% of Irish electricity is \u201cglobally completely unprecedented\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cData centers are using more energy here in Ireland per capita than anywhere else in the world,\u201d she told Newstalk Breakfast<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that’s doing is acting like a rising floor on Ireland’s energy demand; it means that we are more and more vulnerable to price shocks in the wholesale market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Leonard continued that this huge demand for energy means that Ireland is \u201cforced to buy fossil gas<\/a>\u201d, which is a \u201creally volatile\u201d commodity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has cost us \u20ac750 million extra on top of our bills,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe projected in this research that it could rise to between \u20ac1.4 to \u20ac1.6 billion over the next 10 years if we do not limit the demand from data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that if you’re living in Ireland over the last 10 years, you paid at least an average of \u20ac360 extra on your bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Data A data centre. Picture by: Dmitriy Shironosov \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Overall, Ms Leonard characterised it as a \u201cvery worrying picture\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really think that if the Government is serious about reducing the cost of living, electricity prices in Ireland are the highest in the EU at the moment, they’re going to need to tackle data centers,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Factories of the future’<\/p>\n

Also on the programme, Irish Data Centre Supplier Alliance spokesperson Lorcan Allen argued that data centres are \u201cessentially our factories of the future\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take our electricity, they process it into data services,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExports like our exports for 2024 alone were 20, nearly \u20ac280 billion, like over almost 60% of all our service exports now are from technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Allen added that, given the Irish economy\u2019s reliance on the tech industry, data centres using 22% of Irish electricity is not exceptional.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, in Germany, which is renowned for its heavy industry, heavy industry accounts for 45 percent of all electricity use in Germany,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey support 270,000 jobs in our tech sector here.\u201d<\/p>\n

To those who argue that data centres are pushing up Ireland\u2019s carbon footprint, Mr Allen said many renewable projects are financed by the companies that own data centres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than half of all renewable energy, wind and solar, connected to the grid since 2021<\/a> has been funded by data centers, by tech companies, corporate power purchase agreements between data center companies,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re actively helping to bring new power onto the grid; there were six offshore wind projects in Ireland that entered a State auction system to try and get State supports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly four of them were successful, two didn’t, but they’re still being built because they were able to negotiate contracts with data center companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main image: A split of a data cnetre and a person calculating their bills. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rapid expansion of data centres in Ireland has added \u20ac360 to the average person\u2019s bills, Friends of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-471912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}