Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

The Friends of the Earth report needs to be read in the round. It does basically put it up to us, as a Government and an Oireachtas, that if we can do more to speed up the move to renewables, under what it calls high renewable growth scenarios, annual average residual demand, including data centres actually falls below zero in the years ahead.
In other words, accelerated renewable development is presented in this study as sufficient to displace significant reliance on gas as a dispatchable source of energy in the future. As the Deputy acknowledged, there is a genuine economic benefit to data centres but I would dispute the characterisation of the Government's position as an unfettered approach. The CRU's large energy user, LEU, connection policy very much shows how the Government intends to deliver on its renewable energy targets, with data centres above certain thresholds being required to meet at least 80% of their annual demand with new additional renewable electricity generated in the Republic of Ireland.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28