Environmental lawyers have been given the go-ahead by the High Court to challenge rules allowing new data centres to rely heavily on fossil fuels to supply their electricity needs.
The case is taken by Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of the Earth Ireland and ClientEarth, which claim the rules breach Ireland’s climate law as they will increase the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and lock-in long-term fossil fuel dependence.
The groups are taking the case against the energy regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU), which announced the new arrangements last December.
That followed a moratorium on the connection of new data centres to the electricity network in the greater Dublin region due to strains on the electricity supply.
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Under the new rules, data centres will be connected if they supply as much electricity to the network as they take out of it by building – or contracting energy companies to build – power generation plants on site or nearby.
For the first six years, that extra electricity can be generated with fossil fuels. After that, 80 per cent of the electricity will have to come from renewables such as wind or solar farms the data centres build or contract energy companies to build. These can be anywhere in the country. But that still allows 20 per cent of a very large volume of electricity to be generated from gas or oil.
Data centres use 22 per cent of all electricity in the country and that figure is projected to grow to more than 30 per cent by 2031.
Tony Lowes of Friends of the Irish Environment welcomed the High Court’s decision to grant leave to challenge the arrangement.
“If it goes ahead as is, this policy wouldn’t just open the door to immense energy demand and further dependence on expensive fossil gas – it would swing it right off its hinges and lock Ireland into decades of greenhouse gas emissions at the very moment we need to reduce them,” he said.
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Deirdre Duffy of Friends of the Earth said Ireland’s energy policy was “going in the wrong direction”.
“This case is seeking to press pause on that. Instead of cutting fossil fuels, which are driving the climate change Irish people are experiencing with floods and storms, we’re locking in more gas just to keep up with soaring demand from data centres.”
ClientEarth lead lawyer Natascha Hospedales said: “Countries across Europe are grappling with the energy demands of rapidly expanding data centres in the global race to scale AI.
“That’s exactly why regulators like the CRU must ensure their approach to the infrastructure boom is responsible and aligns with legally binding climate commitments.”
The CRU said it would not be appropriate to comment while the proceedings were ongoing.
