The CRU has taken the unprecedented decision to prevent data centres from increasing their energy demand.
This emergency measure is required to stop widespread, catastrophic blackouts which Eirgrid said it could not prevent if data centres continued to add pressure to the grid. Eirgrid warned that essential services are at risk.
Lynn Boylan criticised the government for bringing the country to this cliff edge. Now is the time for political action. We need a full moratorium on data centres.
Lynn Boylan said:
“People all over the country rely on the electricity system to survive but we’re now in the situation where the sheer volume of data centre demand could lead to blackouts impacting the whole electricity system.
“Eirgrid has warned of blackouts ‘that cannot be managed or controlled,’ putting essential services at risk. As a result, the CRU has been forced to take the unprecedented decision of capping the amount of demand that data centres can use at 2025 levels.
“Instead of stepping in to call a halt to the madness, the government continues to sit on the sidelines and force the regulator to make that call. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have abdicated responsibility to the public.
“Big Tech is up in arms over the decision and is furious that they can’t continue to rapidly grow the amount of electricity they use like they’d planned. Three people died when Spain and Portugal were plunged into a blackout last year. Instead of acknowledging the risks they pose to society – to people’s health and very lives – big tech is thinking only of its bottom line. That is psychopathic behaviour.
“We know data centres are driving up the cost of electricity in a cost-of-living crisis; making it harder to connect homes to the electricity network in a housing crisis; and now we learn they could be leading to black outs in a self-inflicted energy-supply crisis.
“This must be a red line. When data centres are jeopardising the stability of the energy system surely the canary in the coal mine is well and truly dead. The government needs to come out of hiding and start acting in the interest of the people they represent. This temporary fix won’t hold. We need a moratorium now, before someone gets hurt – or worse.”
Notes to the editor:
The problem: Fault ride through (FRT)
CRU says: CRU – Grid Code Modification MPID 345 and Compliance and Derogation Framework Decision Paper
“EirGrid has identified a risk to grid stability arising from the collective response of most data centres to fault events occurring on the transmission system. When a fault occurs, most data centres, even those remote from the fault, automatically and near instantaneously significantly reduce consumption from the grid and switch to their own, temporary, back-up sources of supply to ensure continuity of service and do not return to their pre-fault level of demand for an extended period. The simultaneous disconnection of a large volume of demand from the power system can create sudden imbalances between supply and emand, and deviations to frequency levels, which EirGrid is managing in real time, and therefore represents both a significant risk to the security of the system and operational challenges for EirGrid. In certain scenarios, fault ride-through behaviour could result in widespread cascading trips of demand and generation, leading to network outages, and exposing all consumers in Ireland and Northern Ireland to the risk of a significant incident.
The solution: Demand Utilisation Threshold
CRU says: Grid Code Modification MPID 345 and Compliance and Derogation Framework – See page 12
Data centres must change their behaviour to be able to ride through the faults. If they don’t, they would be subjected to “Demand Utilisation Threshold”. This is a cap on the amount of energy existing data centres can use at 2025 levels. In other words, it is a moratorium on the ramp up of data centre demand for those that are non-compliant. On 22 September the CRU decided to approve Grid Code Modification MPID 345.
