Data centres back in the spotlight-using 18% of total power consumption of the country

Fuascailteoir

Electricity usage is only one part of the equation, clean water usage in these facilities is enormous. That is a resource that will become increasingly valuable

Beasty

And then there is the tax take. Corporation tax on profits, employment taxes, local taxes, capital taxes - all for not only the data centres but all the businesses that the data centres rely on. This is all part of this multinational tax take that has been widely reported recently.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718281#Comment_120718281

Well that is one way of looking at it, the other way is 18% consumption is absolutely remarkable and although we have had no blackouts the number of alerts have risen dramatically.

According to a 2020 study by the European Commission, on average data centres accounted for 2.7% of Europe's electricity consumption in 2018. This is expected to rise to 3.2% by 2030. However, in Ireland this figure currently rests at 18%, with EirGrid estimating this could rise to 30% by 2030, 10 times more than the projected European average, highlighting the unparalleled reliance on the electricity grid data centres in Ireland have.

So unless we unearth a constant supply of geo thermal like Iceland or build a nuclear power plant then unfettered growth is not possible.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718847#Comment_120718847

The only way to look at it is that our involvement in this sector has thus far been beneficial to this country in a multitude of ways.

Yes we require investment in our electrical utilities but that's just another area where successive governments have failed.

Big business does a lot of negative things without a doubt but in this situation all Ireland has done is benefit from the investment multinationals have ploughed in to this country.

We've grabbed the opportunity with both hands and done nothing to deal with the issues around power consumption.

Data centres don't just spring up out of the ground, they go through the same planning process as any other structure, power consumption is factored into that, if we're finding ourselves in this situation it's the government that's to blame for it.

All the moaning about the evils of data centres ignores a whole host of realities.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718963#Comment_120718963

The idea that datacentres need to be located in the same country as their parent company is a bit of a myth.

Some do, depending on the application most don't though. I mean up to 60% of what is on them is streaming video which is not reliant on super fast latency.

All the moaning about the evils of data centres ignores a whole host of realities.

There is no one really moaning on here though, pointing out the realities that Ireland is a complete outlier in Europe when it comes to what it gives over to it's grid for basically 70 buildings is just fact.

It's also just a fact that we don't have the capacity for many more, that's why they have been all but in name outlawed.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718984#Comment_120718984

Our capacity is dictated by our power grid which requires modernisation regardless of the presence of data centres or not.

Our power grid, our hospitals, our housing (crisis to give it it's full title) are all underdeveloped thanks to governmental incompetence.

The issue isn't big nasty multinationals coming over to Ireland spending their money, employing people and giving associated industries and their legions of employees the opportunity to develop skills that are sought after internationally.

The major misconception is that there isn't any jobs created from this sector when that couldn't be further from the truth.

screamer

The building of these behemoths is a wasteful activity of epic proportions. They literally put in miles of infrastructure to tear it out and replace it once completed. Totally disgraceful what goes on, but no one knows and no one cares. Too much money at stake, even sleepy Ryan defending them. Green alright, greenback.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719287#Comment_120719287

The vast majority of datacenters in this country do not provide a significant amount of jobs once completed.

They are located here to service international demand for companies - they are not tied to R&D sites in this country.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719704#Comment_120719704

I never claimed anything like that.

The skills required to get them built and up and running aren't applied only here in Ireland.

People specialising in numerous fields relating to data centres in Ireland apply their skills around the world, often from Ireland working remotely as well as on site in other parts of the world.

It isn't a case of once a data centre is built everything that went into building it is lost to the Irish economy forever.

ZookeeperDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719704#Comment_120719704

Anything to back up this claim?

As I pointed out previously even if the DC itself has limited number of staff, they will provide plenty of jobs in other companies providing services into them

roosterman71

I find it funny that people here directly equate data centers and number of jobs. It's not a direct correlation. Take Amazons data centers that run AWS. Not a huge amount of people involved directly there but by jaysus there's some amount of businesses using AWS to run their business, thus employing thousands upon thousands of people. They aren't all in Ireland, but a lot are in the EU which we massively benefit from. And don't forget the many spare billions we have floating around these days which should be partially used to upgrade the grid. But Eirgrid are in charge there and frankly, they are piss poor at that job

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718567#Comment_120718567

None of this is your opinion? Of course it’s your opinion, you’ve just given it. The combined age of the hospitals which the new hospital is expected to replace is neither here nor there, the oldest of them is perhaps 100 years old, when the introduction of electricity to Ireland was in it’s infancy. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume the hospitals have been updated since they were founded?

The point of the article wasn’t that there were overruns, it was that costs hadn’t been accurately estimated in the first place, and as a consequence whomever green lighted the project didn’t have the information to hand to make an informed decision. It’s like you said earlier- basic maths, and whomever the project manager was who didn’t point out the missing cost estimates from the calculations tendered, well, it’s got me scratching my head tbh. Cost estimates are the reason we’re having this conversation about data centres in the first place, it’s a fundamental part of any project -

https://www.healthcarefacilitiestoday.com/posts/Key-considerations-when-cost-estimating-a-healthcare-project--17445#:~:text=Effective%20cost%20models%20should%20include,%2C%20and%20equipment%20(FF%26E).

You’re talking about residential electricity consumption on a national scale, but you’re comparing apples and oranges in trying to make a point about the amount of electricity used by households and by datacentres! Unless they’re running a growhouse, residential customers aren’t going to come anywhere close to the amount of electricity consumed by datacentres, ever! That’s why I’m making the point about at least comparing like with like, and using public services providers like hospitals, schools, retail and other amenities to do so. That’s why nobody cares about however much domestic electricity is used, it doesn’t make any difference in terms of trying to compare it to large electricity consumers!

Hundreds of thousands of smarthomes is not just an opinion btw, it’s wishful thinking, it’s like expecting that the population can increase while decreasing the amount of electricity required to run these hundreds of thousands of extra smarthomes, or expecting that datacentres should be expected to run on fresh air rather than use electricity from the national grid.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718591#Comment_120718591

I'm curious. If water is used for cooling, why can't they have a recirculatory system and reuse the same water?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720036#Comment_120720036

None of that is eirgrids job.

And the idea that if those data centers were not built in ireland, they wouldnt be built at all is absurd. Complete false dichotomy

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720254#Comment_120720254

Water is primarily used for evaporative cooling

WheelieKing

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120713256#Comment_120713256

What you mean do something sensible or forward planning 🤣, as if.

roosterman71

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720289#Comment_120720289

Eirgrids job to manage the grid, which includes maintaining and expanding. If not Eirgrid, who is it?

Never said they wouldn't be built elsewhere

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718540#Comment_120718540

Did anyone tell the Chinese?

You can move from carbon heavy generation to renewables but for the population growth we have seen you aren't going to reduce electricity demand in any significant way.

Data centres are a necessity of modern life and commerce.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120718567#Comment_120718567

Youve mentioned microgeneration a few times. While microgeneration is welcome it doesn't lead to a reduction in electricity consumption and, as with electric car charging, our grid infrastructure is woeful under prepared for it on a large scale currently.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120713045#Comment_120713045

They literally do, datacentre capacity and costs for using that DC are built into the spot prices for compute allowing background asynchronous tasks to run when power is cheap (I.e. non-peak times).

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720254#Comment_120720254

They do, however they have to constantly treat the water for bacteria growth, the filters are often clog as well.

ZookeeperDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720254#Comment_120720254

Is that what you mean: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/power-and-cooling/data-centers-leverage-cooling-heat-homes

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719287#Comment_120719287

Our capacity is dictated by our power grid which requires modernisation regardless of the presence of data centres or not

Well not completely true, our capacity is also dictated by legally binding assurances that we will reduce consumption, emissions and hit 80% renewal on electricity.

We both agree on the governmental incompetence, I think this highlights it even more.

The "open door" policy on these was a terrible decision by the government which has put in motion 30% of the grid been given over these things by 2030.

10 times the EU average.

I think everyone can agree that is absolute bonkers.

The major misconception is that there isn't any jobs created from this sector when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Not by be.

The fallacy peddled again this week that these are vital to support the industry and 100,000 jobs is just nonsensical scaremongering.

If that true there wouldn't be basically a ban on them presently.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720219#Comment_120720219

You’re talking about residential electricity consumption on a national scale, but you’re comparing apples and oranges in trying to make a point about the amount of electricity used by households and by datacentres! Unless they’re running a growhouse, residential customers aren’t going to come anywhere close to the amount of electricity consumed by datacentres, ever!

You are comparing 1 residential customer to a datacentre again?

That is beyond remedial.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720396#Comment_120720396

Eirgrid manage the wholesale distribution market, and actual grid infrastructure like interconnectors.

They have no role in generation - which is where we are falling behind

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720934#Comment_120720934

Of course it does. It takes massive amounts of energy to create, maintain and store energy from the grid.

Smart microgeneration will manage consumption far more efficiently.

Even bog standard smart meters are known to reduce consumption.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720929#Comment_120720929

No one mentioned China.

The charge was no country can increase population and decrease consumption.

Which is completely false.

SuperBowserWorld

I would say most data in/to/from data centres is garbage/duplicate/porn/Facebook crap/tik tok crap/...

It's because it's "free" people don't see the cost.

It's like pretending Christmas is a time of giving by buying junk that rips up some part of the work you can't see, to give to someone to throw into landfill.

But it's good training data and a huge data pool for future AI overloads, totalitarian governments and criminals.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120721030#Comment_120721030

The fallacy peddled again this week that these are vital to support the industry and 100,000 jobs is just nonsensical scaremongering.

If that true there wouldn't be basically a ban on them presently.

There isn’t basically a ban on them presently? There’s a moratorium on connecting any more data centres to the grid in the greater Dublin area. That doesn’t stop them being built, and in the case of Microsoft at least, they plan on giving back to the grid (for a price, of course) -

https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-aws-data-centers-ireland-power-constraints-183054626.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmllLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEFQk2fkPA7RvNvyoZsUrZOqD7fDNa42KpX7dLPkZhCvOCnAbyk6Pb-boxYmHnzxKfmKdLBjQpcQqusnyoHYficfJvIi5g05qO9CF8AxLSFfZsRu3H1K3V7KFo9dZMNgb8neVU8tunkbs_xivNnMZic56uFepAgKEMvy0RrfbfzD

https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2022/07/08/microsoft_grid_interactive_ups_dublin/

The statement that they support 100,000 jobs isn’t just scaremongering, it’s based on the fact that data centres don’t just host videos or streaming services, they’re primarily used for hosting business applications and processing business data. That has nothing to do with the moratorium or the reason there’s a moratorium on them in Dublin. It has everything though to do with why the IDA are anxious that the moratorium be lifted.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120721041#Comment_120721041

No, I’m saying that there’s just no comparison between residential customers electricity use, and large industrial scale commercial use of electricity. I don’t know why anyone’s even trying to compare them. The only reason anyone would even try to compare them is to scare domestic users into thinking that data centres are a threat to their lifestyle and must be banned 😒

BKtje

We could flip this and see their energy usage (and payment) as an opportunity. They use large amounts of electricity and we need to build a lot of energy generation in any case over the next decade, with economies of scale surely the price per generator should drop as we build more and allow it to be partly funded by their usage. Ireland could use this to become an expert in the field which would allow the export of this knowledge. We need to stop seeing everything as a problem and attempt to seize the opportunities that arise.

DCs are required for the modern economy to function (as well as economies abroad), surely we can leverage this to the country's advantage. Personally it seems like wrong decisions were made in the long term planning of DCs which is not their fault but from their suppliers who have not properly accounted for the demand.

What do the opposition of the DCs propose? Should we shut them down? The impact this would have on the wider economy (confidence, monetarily, opportunity losses) would be catastrophic in my opinion. You can't run a high tech economy with the wealth that that brings without high tech infrastructure. Do we wish to return to the 80s before Ireland became wealthy? Sure we could export DC usage to other countries but then we are just into NIMBYism and the income generated for the economy is exported abroad.

There seems to be a pause on new DCs which appears to be a legitimate reply to the lack of electricity supply. Stop blaming "the customer" and start blaming the supplier for constraining growth like in any other industry!