The rapid increase in Data Centres connected to the grid in Ireland is getting a lot of the blame for this current supply crunch. There’s now 70 centres in Ireland, 60 in the Greater Dublin Area. New centres numbers increased by 25% in a year, and currently they are using 11% of national Electricity Supply. With the current & future applications for more data centres this could be near 40% of projected electricity demand on the grid.
However whilst there is no doubt a policy issue with most of the new national energy demand coming from Data Centres sector. There are Electricity Market issues here, inc delays to wind farm development & slow govt policy, that have led to this power blackout warning. Not forgetting the big increase in global wholesale gas prices (Russia restricting supply to Europe & Far East new gas demand) which affects our oil prices here, and wholesale electricity market prices in Ireland too. Most non green electric power stations use imported Gas to power the turbines.
Funnily enough, this big increase in Data Centres connections to the grid, might actually quicken the development of Wind Energy in Ireland this decade. Wind Energy being a local free independent source of energy once the farms are built and backed up on the grid by new flexible gas power plants, gas & wind storage facilities and industrial demand management.