The Government's planned policy to allow privately owned electricity networks on public property represents a dangerous diversion of Ireland's limited infrastructure resources and could result in major EU fines, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions warned today.
Last month, the Government signalled its intention to issue a new policy on privately owned electricity networks. The proposed policy would allow the construction of private electricity networks on public property to connect large energy users to new generation capacity, and bypass the current lack of sufficient network and generation capacity in the public electricity infrastructure.
However, Congress is now warning that the policy change would primarily benefit data centre developers, diverting scarce infrastructure resources, in terms of both new network and generation capacity, to these large private energy users alone at a time of heightened demand for public infrastructure.
Under EU rules, Ireland has to meet EU decarbonisation targets by 2030 or face significant fines. A shift of capacity from the public system into private development will put Ireland’s ability to reach these targets at risk.
This approach fundamentally misallocates Ireland's access to scarce infrastructure resources at a critical time for our climate commitments," said Jim Dullaghan, Chair of ICTU Energy & Natural Resources Committee. "We're essentially allowing data centres to jump the queue while ordinary customers and decarbonisation efforts are left waiting."
“Ireland faces limitations in materials and labour resources for infrastructure construction due to supply chain and workforce shortages as well as international competition for these limited resources. Diverting these constrained resources to private data centre developments will further delay the delivery of the additional network and generation capacity needed to meet EU decarbonisation targets.
“Failure to meet these targets could result in EU penalties ranging from €6 billion to €21 billion – costs that will ultimately be borne by taxpayers and public electricity customers.
The Government is expected to publish its formal policy proposal in July.
