A grid under pressure: Talking data centres with Paul Murphy TD

This week’s episode is a dive into data centres. Across Europe they consume about 3% of the grid’s electricity, but in Ireland, that figure is over 21%. Eirgrid expect that to rise to 30% in the next 5 years. Can our grid and our water system cope with that, and should it? What’s the link between data centres and plans to import fracked LNG? And what will AI mean for data centre demand? Paul Murphy was in studio to discuss this and more.

Video clips on instagram https://www.instagram.com/redalertdublin/

‘Data centres in the context of Ireland’s carbon budgets’
Hannah Daly’s December 2024 report https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/assets/files/pdf/data_centrres_and_the_carbon_budgets_-_prof_hannah_daly_dec_2024.pdf 

New York Times article on low employment from data centres https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/technology/cloud-computing-brings-sprawling-centers-but-few-jobs-to-small-towns.html?_r=1 

Public meeting at Buswells on new LNG terminal https://www.instagram.com/p/DHrKRf2sSld/ 

Campaign websitehttps://stopshannonlng.ie/ 

Politico article on buying LNG to appease Trump https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-emissions-rules-us-oil-gas-firms-lng-exports-donald-trump-trade-war/  

Oisin Coghlan (Director of Friend of the Earth Ireland) on LNG v coal
“The science is clear that importing LNG is worse than burning coal. We may as well just keep Moneypoint on the go for energy security as build a new LNG terminal." https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/campaigners-call-on-tds-to-vote-against-planning-bill-if-it/ 

Increased data centre demand from AI https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-poised-to-drive-160-increase-in-power-demand 

Increased data centre demand https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/global-data-center-electricity-use-to-double-by-2026-report/ 

Comparing EU countries by data centre electricity use https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC135926 

Shannon LNG plans to develop data centres https://www.businesspost.ie/news/ireland-part-of-new-fortress-energys-plans-to-develop-data-centres-on-more-than-1000-acres-of-lan/    

Recorded on Thursday the 27th of March, 2025.