From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Duncan Wilson
Much of Ireland’s economic growth in the last three decades has come from the onshoring of high tech companies, including data centres. But it appears Ireland no longer want them, “cos of climate change”.
The CRU, the Irish equivalent of OFGEM, has just published its new policy for “Large Energy Users”, in particular data centres – (my highlights):
Public/ Customer Impact Statement
Connection policy plays an important role in determining the conditions under which customers can connect to the electricity and gas networks. The connection policy for LEUs can have a consequential impact on economic growth and development in the economy, however it can also have significant impact on security of supply and the ability to meet Ireland’s renewable energy targets if not adequately addressed.
In recent years new data centre projects have grown quickly in volume and scale, and these sites display unique characteristics relative to other large users on the electricity network, particularly in their ability to ramp up their demand very quickly. This speed of demand growth can be quicker than the development of network infrastructure and electricity generation and can have implications for the capacity available for other customers.
Security of electricity supply, in a general sense, refers to the electricity system having the appropriate capabilities to maintain supply to consumers. These capabilities are in the form of generation, storage, demand response and network capacity, which in combination meet electricity demand.
The CRU, in developing this new LEU connection policy, remains cognisant of its statutory obligation to protect security of supply.
The Climate Action Plan, published by Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, sets out a roadmap of actions which aims to lead Ireland to meeting its national climate objectives. This includes a target to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to up to 80% by 2030. The CRU has a function to ensure that grid connection policy takes account of renewable energy policy.
New data centres connecting under this policy will be required to provide new renewable and dispatchable electricity generation. The additional investment associated with these projects will help to address renewable energy targets and security of supply in the context of the additional demand associated with new data centres. Data centres will be able to develop these generation projects directly or contract with other parties to develop them. In order to support the wider electricity network and market, the generation projects will participate in the wholesale electricity market. Participation in the market can also provide a revenue stream to support these investments.
In short, all new developments must provide genuinely new capacity – both renewable and dispatchable. There must be enough capacity to run the data centre from renewables alone on a de-rated basis and enough to run from dispatchable as well when renewables are not available.
The cost of having to provide this capacity will presumably make new data centres unviable. As one commenter pointed out, these new rules specifically exclude paper PPAs, where companies buy up the output from, say, a wind farm, in order to claim they are green; in reality that wind power would be for sale on the market anyway, so the paper transaction does not increase the amount of wind power produced. Nor, of course, does the buyer suffer when the wind does not blow, because his electricity comes from the grid, not the wind farm.
Also, the new capacity provided must be connected to the grid, unlike, say, a diesel generator kept as back up.
This crazy topsy turvy of priorities is symptomatic of far more fundamental problems facing Ireland, thanks to their climate targets of increasing renewable electricity to 80% of the total by 2030.
Last year, fossil fuels accounted for 45% of total electricity supply. Wind accounts for a third, but Ireland relies heavily on electricity imported from Britain – 14%.
https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-publications/energy-in-ireland
It is not a coincidence that Ireland went from being a net exporter of electricity to a consistent importer in the last three years, as their reliance on wind power has grown:
As an aside, Ireland is now having to constrain/curtail a tenth of its wind generation, when there is too much wind. Apparently Britain did not want to buy the surplus!
And as here, the opposite happens, and the wind does not blow in Ireland. Just this week, for instance, Ireland went two days with virtually no wind power at all:
https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/all/generation
It was, of course, gas that filled the shortfall in wind power, just as it is gas that is ramped up and down to meet fluctuating demand.
Ireland’s all time highest peak demand was 7.5 GW, so they need at least 9.0 GW on a de-rated basis, even without extra demand from data centres. Gas power capacity across Ireland is about 8.0 GW currently and the last coal power station at Moneypoint shut during the summer.
No doubt, Ireland will cheat and classify imports from Britain as “renewable”, even though they will be supplied from our CCGT plants, topped up with imports from Europe, which we are already totally dependent on.
But what is certain is that Ireland will never be able to rely on wind and solar power for 80% of its electricity, unless it wants to return to the Dark Ages.
Explanatory Notes
The island of Ireland’s grid is a bit of a hybrid, with Ireland and N Ireland lumped together. Each country runs its won grid, but they obviously work very closely together, for instance on interconnectors to Britain and the Single Electricity Market.
The CRU is strictly for the Republic of Ireland. Most of the charts above are also for the Republic, coming from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.
However my final chart is All Island. It seems that this is more appropriate; given the Single Electricity Market, shortages of power will be across the board, affecting both countries.
That chart is also available for just the Republic of Ireland; it naturally tells the same story.
FOOTNOTE
This is the detailed requirement laid down by CRU:
MIC = Maximum Import Capacity.
In short, data centres must build enough dispatchable capacity to power them for 100% of their needs.
In addition, they must also source 80% of their electricity from ADDITIONAL renewable generation.
Don’t worry. I’m sure that some bureaucratic shenanigans will be able to allow these requirements to be met on paper.
You surely mean a Leprechaun not a bureaucrat?
“shenanigan” sounds like an Irish name 🙂
Indeed, the Blarney Stone is the national symbol.
I hope that doesn’t mean we get more Irish immigration in Great Britain.
Ireland got itself into trouble by offering generous tax breaks to Apple. Behind it all was… the European Commission, they don’t like states going off piste..
The Court of Justice gives final judgment in the matter and confirms the European Commission’s 2016 decision: Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover.” – RSM
To my knowledge Apple has not paid the demanded 13 or 14 billion euros in tax. But then this saga has been running since 2016.
Ireland is hidebound by EU directives in all areas. The Irish are more akin to the British than the mainland continent. They too have, shall we say, two-tier justice, “a housing crisis”, and a censorship crisis. Starmer is in philosophical lockstep with the new EU puritans in Dublin.
The British isles should be quarantined as a total basket case. At the beginning of the year a storm [they called it ‘Eowyn’] hit Ireland. And of course… “Ireland experienced its most powerful wind gusts on record”. The Irish met office is every bit as bent as the UK one. Naturally, the alleged record storm prompted an EU emergency response. They called it a ‘significant aid package’….
17 Diesel generators; 13 from Poland and 4 from Denmark.
The long term considerations…
As Ireland begins its recovery from Storm Eowyn with EU support, the incident serves as a stark reminder of the challenges posed by a changing climate.
https://newsday.ie/eu-sends-electricity-generators-ireland-as-storm-eowyn-causes-widespread-power-outages/
Datacentres would, I’m sure, need a bit more than a mere 17 generators…
I wonder how the EU will keep up a war against Russia (somehow many European Leaders and top army personnel got struck by the very same enlightenment last week that they need to start recruiting people ),
that 17 generators are a significant package?
And why did they sent electric generators instead of solar panels and windmills?
Wouldn’t the additional co2 increase the mediocrity of British storms?
I don’t think the EU can manage to fund Ukraine for more than a couple of years. It’s costing ~100 billion euros each year to keep the attrition going. Magical sanctions bite, but they are more symbolic than a winner.
At some point the towel will have to be thrown in.
I don’t think Russia can last a couple of years.
You may think that, however, I think that you are wrong. Russia still gets money from hydrocarbons from the EU despite all those sanctions etc, indeed, Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.
In simple cash terms Russia has been paid more than Ukraine has been given.
Grab a chair and pass the popcorn.
You also thought that Russia ran out of missiles after 3 days,
and that the Ukraine is winning day after day after day, with gamechanger after gamechanger (imagine people so stupid that they believe a 50 year old F16 to be a gamechanger in a modern war.Noone would ever believe that a 50 year old formula 1 car could win a race today),
against an unmotivated,unorganized,underequipped army only fighting with shovels- yet Ukraine is on its knees right now, lost 3 major strongholds
in 2 months.
Maybe you should consider that the information you get are not accurate and you should also take a look at Russias economic growth throughout the conflict :
2023 :4.1%
2024:4.1%
2025 :0.5%
And they have all the ressources in the world to drag this out for decades,
while Europe has debts and a population that won’t fight because they have been turned into a bunch of fagots.
you just repeat crappy Kremlinski excrement.
“Ukraine is on its knees right now, lost 3 major strongholds in 2 months.”
Yea in your dreams!
Did you eve live in Russia or visit Ukraine??
I thought not!
Let me take a wild guess miss piggy.
You are the standard 1 Dimensional American wokr ” I’m not woke” dude ,
who never learns shit, no matter how obvious the official lies are.
As long as it is not categorized as left you will eat any shit, do you?
Especially when it gives you a sense of strength and someone evil you can oppose.
Now let’s do some very basic stuff here – in reverse.
If the Russians had invested 5 Billions into a Mexican revolution
as Americans did in Ukraine and were on record to have done so(as Nuland is)
and were actively participating in a coup (as cookie Nuland did back then) to replace an pro-American government with a pro-Russian one,
you’d never ever get the idea to blame USA for the war for very very obvious reasons.
But when it is the other way around you have no problem blaming Russia.
If the Mexicans then would shoot 1500 grenades to Texas per day,
as the Ukrainian did into Donbass (according to OSCE data),
you’d advocate for the USA to go full nuclear day 1.
And we know that even a single grenade 10000 miles away is reason enough for the USA to go to war,
as happened in Turkey about 10 years ago when a grenade hit a bazar
and Syria was blamed
and the USA wanted to go all in (when a country killed millions of people in dozens of fake wars, is upset because some people were killed in turkey , than something smells fishy )
I instantly said this was a standard Nato false flag Gladio style, but I’d never thought them to be so stupid to actually use a Nato grenade.
After this was discovered everyone instantly forgot about the incident and the rabid bloodlust to punish the culprit also disappeared.
Now that you know finally a bit about the real situation.
Let’s look at some numbers.
The Russians have a minimum 5:1 advantage in grenades.
They have an official disadvantage of 2:1 in drones, as Ukraine produces 4 mio drones per year according to Bloomberg(some idiots really believe that a country with a destroyed electricity grid can produce so much and without the Russians not striking such massive production facilities).
Therefore Ukraine probably doesn’t produce 400 K = another 5:1 disadvantage.
According to the west Russia lost a million people while according to Zelensky Ukraine has lost only 37000 soldiers as of February this year.
The problem with this is that Russia had only 1 real mobilization while Ukraine had 6 or 7 by now.
And dispite so many mobilizations Ukraine is having a shortage in manpower
and is being told by warcrimals like Graham and Bolton to lower conscription age to 18 to compensate.
How can Ukraines 1 million men army have any shortages after only using 30 K soldiers?
Especially after 7 mobilization and 1 mio dead Russians?
The answer is correct in a typical Orwellian way:
The Russians are the ones with the low number of losses and the Ukrainian have lost already 1 million+ (according to Colonel MacGregor- former Trump advisor ).
But I’m pretty sure you can counter all my claims 🙂
“you and your NULAND coup” just more crappy conspiracy theories.
I have been many times in Ukraine and Russia inc that bit of bankrupt Ukraine called CRIMEA.
YOU
not once.
That says it all.
Command-control economies can accomplish whatever they put together a chain of logistics to control. They need very little money except to grease a few smugglers, they issue stamps for people to exchange for shoes, food stamps for the shoe factory workers, military commanders take over the shoe factory on the premise of need for the army….many jobs are created pouring steel for tanks and artillery… and so on…it’s not finely honed by profit motive for consumer products as is our “Black Friday” economy…no kid is going to get chips for computer games if the chips are needed for other purposes. But measuring such an economy by when you calculate they will go “broke” is a serious error….
Russia has many more young men than does Ukraine. Russia will win this war of attrition.
yea in your dreams.
You have never been in Russia or Ukraine.
So you are just another ignorant outside listening to Kremlin crap on steroids.
I feel sorry for you.
Russia has a catastrophic demographic curve, with only about 15 million out of the approx 125-130 million doing any form of useful work.
The rest are retired, alcoholic or both inc those working in the administration who routinely do about 1 day of poor quality work per week.
Ie approx the population of London in the largest country in the world
Talk about productivity now.
One of the lowest in the world with salaries that approx 1/4 of those in the EU and working long hours for it.
poverty is everywhere, and social security is non existent.
Think I don’t know it??
I lived there, seen it all seen the video read the book.
The EU knows this very well.
It is not about financing or winning right now IMO,
it is about surviving the Trump-era.
They are trying to keep this going on somehow until Trump gets replaced
by a globalist
(the Rig and Narrative built up is already there as they released a poll 3 days ago where AOC is ahead of JD Vance ).
After Trump gets replaced the USA will pay for everything and enter the war.
I remember how after the start of the Ukraineconflict everyone was suddenly talking about China.
The same China no one was allowed to criticize because of the China virus.
But all of a sudden everyone did for no obvious reason.
This changed my initial opinion that they were so mad at Putin just because he kicked the 7 oligarchs out to London and that he turned Russia from 3rd world(actually worse as Moscow looked like San Francisco back then) into a evolveing country
IMO this indicates that the endgoal was to crack China by cracking the gasstation pretending to be a country first and to then cut off China from Russian ressources via Russias new western proxy leaders.
This would explain why they are so disproportionately irrational
in terms of Ukraine(they never had a problem when the USA did the same thing or worse to other countries), so much that they exposed the tyrannocracy of the EU, even before the subjugation via CBDC’s.
yuh, maybe the UK should have thrown in the towel to Hitler, after all, it was all alone for a long time- outmanned, outgunned and broke
It’s called APPEASMENT, and Yankee Trump is being blackmailed+No1 appeaser.
All back to 1938 again.
We had an empire
Thanks for the laugh
The Climate Action Plan, published by Department of
Climate, Energy and the Environment, Lies, Lies, and More Lies sets out a roadmap of actions which aims to lead Irelandto meeting its national climate objectives.off a financial cliff.There, fixed.
They have kissed the Blarney Stone a few too many times.
Story Tip. [Covid] Patrick Vallance, now an unelected Lord, is being sent in to bat for the Met Office.
Government Minister Steps in to Defend Met Office as Fake Temperature Scandal Escalates
In a couple of weeks’ time, the Met Office is likely to announce another ‘hottest year evah’ in the UK. The message will be broadcast faithfully by trusted messengers in mainstream media, keen to prop up the fading Net Zero fantasy.
“There has been a growing online narrative in some online and social media spaces attempting to undermine Met Office observations and data,” he observes. Vallance’s conspiracy claims echo similar comments made earlier in the year by the Met Office. The investigative efforts of a small number of people were said by the state meteorologist to be an “attempt to undermine decades of robust science around the world ‘s changing climate”. – Daily Sceptic
From covid criminal to climate criminal. A seamless transition.
In a sense this is fair enough. Renewables are unable to meet Ireland’s demands properly without links to the UK.
BUT of course this is a huge incentive for large users of power to grab a small nuclear reactor, and they have the cash to build them too.
And can of course export any surplus to the grid as well..
So I don’t see this so much a refusal to host Big Data, as an opportunity for Big Data to lower its costs and prop up the grid.
If you have reserve generation capacity as Ireland did….you can justify adding wind and solar as “very cheaply” since you don’t need to buy storage batteries….your existing reserve is already ”free backup”….this causes utilities to spend money on weather dependency generation well past the logical point of putting in enough PV panels to match the air-conditioning load on a sunny afternoon…which also assumes they have “free” real estate for the solar farms close to where they need air conditioning…but I digress…somebody ends up paying for the enthusiastic adoption of conceptually stupid policies….and guess who that is.
The assumption was that wind was localised and surpluses could be easily sold and banked paying for future imports. But in the real world the whole of Europe can be covered by a blocking high turning off wind and too many countries then needing imports, Norway and Sweden then having to sell while paying a high price internally. And conversely when the wind is too high it is also not localised so the surplus goes nowhere and the turbines turned off and paid to do so,
How not to run an energy system for an advanced technology dependant region.
Listened to a podcast ramping up Anti-AI sentiment yesterday, host claimed data centers “use up” too much water”. The obvious question, what does “use up” water mean? The water itself is H2O. At worst the DC is making green hydrogen?If something bad is being added to the water, like lead in Detroit, then it seems like someone should talk about it.
Maybe the anti-DC movement is retribution against big tech companies for getting off the green energy band wagon? I need a good conspiracy theory for this, I’m not ready to admit people who sound smart are dummies.
From the above article:
“The Climate Action Plan, published by Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, sets out a roadmap of actions which aims to lead Ireland to meeting its national climate objectives. This includes a target to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to up to 80% by 2030.”
It looks like “the luck of the Irish” has finally run out . . . or will by 2030.
This is really sad but shows perfectly why the US is the US and Ireland is Ireland. Wind and solar don’t work everybody knows that. If they did they wouldn’t need 24/7 backup and 24/7 storage. Even a third grader can understand this. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear power plants and remove all wind and solar from the grid. Do this and your energy problems are solved, don’t do this and you are locked into energy poverty, energy inflation, brownouts/blackouts and a life much poorer and brutal than now. It is that simple.
As someone with Irish ancestry, both Catholic and protestant, I am not convinced Ireland ever left the dark ages. In which case, they have just decided to stay there with their attitude towards data centres.