Today with David McCullagh
A ‘cautionary tale’ for the world: Data centre’s heavy demand on the grid highlighted in UN report
04 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What does the UN report reveal about Ireland's data centre energy consumption?
First this morning, a new UN report has described Ireland as a live, cautionary example of what happens when the growth of AI infrastructure outpaces energy planning. The report says data centres now account for around 21% of Irish electricity consumption, with that figure expected to rise further. as demand for artificial intelligence grows.
The authors say Ireland offers a glimpse of challenges that other countries may soon face. Lisa Ryan, Professor in Energy Economics at UCD, joins me now. Morning, Lisa.
Good morning, David. How are you?
I'm very well, thanks. So we are a world leader, a pioneer, but not in a good way.
Well, I suppose for starters, it should be said it's understandable why data centres came here in the first place. You know, we have a very moderate climate, which apparently is extremely good for data centres. It means they don't need to be heated, cooled. They can kind of be kept at a steady temperature.
We have lots of data, sorry, technology companies, which are the main users of data centres. They provide jobs. So, you know, this is why they initially came here.
This report is now pointing out, along with other reports, it has to be said, but this is probably the first international one that is naming us, is pointing out that it's grown to such a large extent that now we do have some challenges facing us because of this. the size of this data centre grows.
Yeah, and we know the report mentions, but we know that around one fifth of Ireland's electricity is used by data centres. The problem really is that that is expected to grow.
Yeah, that is the challenge. It's expected to grow to 30% by already 2030. And I suppose one of the big challenges that we have with data centres is that we are trying to switch our electricity system to a wholly renewables-based one. So right now, our electricity system is based on wind mainly and then some gas when we don't have wind.
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Chapter 2: Why did data centres initially choose Ireland as their location?
It's quite challenging to maintain this infrastructure. So maybe we're not really the best place to be having such a high proportion of all these data centres here.
Are there better locations for data centres, do you think?
I think there are. I mean, I think countries that have, you know, a very stable baseload electricity, especially ones that come from renewables, will be a good place. So if you think of Norway or Austria, they have a lot of hydroelectricity, so they have nearly 100% renewable electricity, but it's dispatchable. In other words, it's not reliant on the weather.
It doesn't need to be as flexible as ours. Or say France, with its nuclear electricity, it's just a baseload all the time. They would be countries you would expect that would have a better chance of, you know, sustaining such a high share of infrastructure that you would need for data centres and to provide this level of electricity demand.
Now, supporters of data centres, the tech companies, the government indeed, will say they bring jobs, they bring investment, they bring tax revenue. We saw that report published by the government the other day saying that since 2010, data centres have added €22 billion to the Irish economy, created 17,000 jobs and generated almost €3 billion in tax. So there are arguments for them.
It's the question of, I suppose I should say, of whether we just have too many of them.
Yeah, I mean, that's right. The report last week that the government presented a report on the benefits of data centres. And there are significant jobs. Now, some of those jobs, I think at least half those jobs come from the construction sector. So arguably now some of those are very specialised construction jobs. It has to be said they might necessarily be.
uh you know able to switch into retrofitting homes or building houses but there are a lot of construction jobs that probably we would like to have also in the housing sector and they do they have generated a lot of benefits of course they have the question is should we keep going and there's more than a dozen right now in the pipeline for example and this is going to put a significant strain it also means that any additional renewable electricity that's coming online
it's more or less being completely taken up by the data centres. And even when we have the offshore wind in the future, it again is not going to, we need long duration storage.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Ireland face with increasing data centre demand?
So I think until you have caught up... The prudent approach would be to just slow down, halt, maybe don't let another dozen data centres come online until we have settled that we try to meet our renewable energy targets and our CO2 emissions targets first. And then we can see about more data centres coming on and maybe encourage them to go elsewhere in Europe.
I know that's contrary to, I suppose, most economic policy. But at the same time, we do have a problem if we don't have enough electricity to meet them. And that could ruin our reputation as well in the long run.
OK, Lisa Ryan, Professor in Energy Economics at UCD. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.