The national carbon budget recently approved by the government mandates that Ireland should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 51 per cent by 2030 when compared to 2018 levels. This is one of the most ambitious targets in the world, and it requires action to decarbonise across all sectors of the economy.
Following the approval of our overall carbon budgets last year, the government is now reviewing its data centre strategy to ensure the sector aligns with sectoral emissions ceilings. Moving the focus away from renewable energy targets makes sense because, as more data centres come online, overall sectoral emissions will increase regardless of the percentage target set for renewable energy use. Carbon emissions produced, rather than renewable energy consumed, is therefore a stronger metric of climate action for data centres than renewable energy targets. This is another key finding of the UCC study.
Data centre operators can implement other measures to reduce their emissions and their impact on Ireland’s energy supply. Above all, they need to show flexibility in their operations. Such measures include load shifting by time, load shifting by location, back-up generation, and back-up energy storage. The ability of data centres to reduce their consumption will vary, however.