It is not possible to assess how much Irish households are paying to subsidise the proliferation of data centres due to an absence of transparency and traceability, according to a new report on how network charges are imposed.
However, the report maintains that Irish consumers pay disproportionately more for electricity than large data centres do.
The suggestions have been disputed by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU).
The report claims that by spreading the cost of network upgrades among both domestic and business customers, the cost of household bills is higher, despite the fact that many of the structural improvements are needed to accommodate data centres.
RM Block
The report – By Design, Not by Default: How Regulatory Discretion Socialises the Cost of Data-Centre Expansion in the EU: A Case Study of Ireland – was written by Eve Ryan, a researcher at Trinity College Dublin, and launched by Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan on Tuesday.
It looks at the way the CRU determines how the cost of expanding and reinforcing the electricity network is shared between data centres and other users such as households.
Speaking at the launch, Ryan pointed to an absence of traceability from the CRU when it comes to network charges.
[ Do data centres pay their own way? The answer is not straightforwardOpens in new window ]
She said complexities in how charges are broken down made it impossible for her to document just how much a system skewed towards large data centres was costing Irish households.
Boylan said the report’s findings claim that “households are being put on the hook for costs associated with the enormous increase in electricity demand from data centres”.
While data centres pay connection fees when hooking up to the network, “they are not paying the full cost of the grid reinforcement that their demand requires”, she argued.
“In effect, a portion of the cost of accommodating data centre expansion is covered by electricity network charges and buried in bills paid by ordinary consumers. It’s like a secret charge,” the Sinn Féin MEP said.
She cited the Castlebaggot substation, describing it as “a stark example” of a substation built to support housing in west Dublin, the output from which was swallowed up by data centre demand before it was even complete.
“The substation was built at a cost of €100 million but went to private benefit,” she said. “What’s worse is that this is a political choice. There is no law or rule that’s forcing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to have households pay this charge.”
[ Other countries could follow Irish lead on data centre rulesOpens in new window ]
She said there were alternatives that would see consumers pay less for network upgrades used by data centres.
“We could design a system that shows in the open how data centres are driving up costs. We could design a system that forces data centres to pay the costs associated with additional network infrastructure,” she suggested.
“Instead, the Government designed a system that heaps extra costs on people who are facing the highest electricity costs in Europe while more than 320,000 households are in arrears.”
Boylan called on the Government “to explain why ordinary households should be forced to carry the costs of the richest companies in the world. If data centres are driving the need for additional grid investment, they should pay their fair share.”
The CRU said it was inaccurate “to characterise network investment [as] solely or primarily being undertaken to facilitate data centres”.
A spokesman said the CRU could not comment on the specifics as it had not been given sight of the report or the parameters used in the research, but he stressed that “each customer pays a proportionate amount based on their usage”.
He added that it “should be noted that recent tariff decisions have resulted in substantial increases in network charges for extra-large energy users”.
