Ireland’s digital ambitions hang on what’s happening at ground level with the grid
“You cannot have an AI strategy without an energy strategy.”
Wise words. Wise words indeed from Rhonda Doyle, country president at Schneider Electric Ireland, who acknowledges “the hard reality” that “our digital ambitions are bound by our grid capacity”.
According to Doyle, as a country on the “frontline of the infrastructure challenge”, the EU presidency provides Ireland with the opportunity to “demonstrate how clean energy, digital infrastructure and industrial innovation can work together to attract investment, create high-value jobs and strengthen regional economic growth across Europe”.
And yet, I can’t help thinking that if someone was seriously looking for a way to balance their grid capacity with their digital ambitions, Ireland might not be the best place to start.
There’s a reason Ireland is “on the frontline of the infrastructure challenge” and it’s not necessarily an example that other European countries should follow. Instead of serving as a blueprint, perhaps it would be better to view Ireland, home to 107 data centres with nine more under construction and planning approval for a further 43, as an outlier or, in the words of a recent UN report, “a cautionary tale”.
Some people might disagree with Ireland’s data centre strategy being labelled as ‘reckless’, but it’s hard to see how else to describe a situation where government policy will lead to almost one-third of the country’s electricity being used by just one sector in the next five years.
Try to imagine any other scenario where a government would blithely continue with a policy that it knew would cause a hugely disproportionate increase in energy demand over such a short period of time. Try to imagine any other situation where anyone with any sense would vote for a government to pursue such a strategy.
And while we’re all imagining, let’s try and picture a world where the government commissions a report to extol the virtues of its data centre policy that highlights the mythical 876,000 jobs enabled but neglects to mention its costs, specifically the higher electricity prices it could foist on the Irish public.
Well, we don’t have to because, according to local news website Dublin People, that report appears to have mysteriously avoided addressing the “potential for increases in electricity prices related to any grid infrastructure developments required to support further data centre development” highlighted in the terms of reference.
Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan has called on the Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke to explain why the report “fails to address the impact of data centres on the cost of energy”.
Labour climate spokesperson Ciarán Ahern accused the government of appearing to be “more interested in providing political cover for continued expansion” than tackling “the enormous pressures being placed on our electricity system, climate targets and household bills”.
A popular uprising
The good news, if it can be labelled as such, is that Ireland is not an outlier when it comes to failing to fully inform the public of the impact of data centres. In the US, famed public health activist Erin Brockovich has launched a campaign to tackle the proliferation of AI data centres in the US, which are often being constructed without public knowledge or consent and approved without environmental impact assessments or public input.
Separately, as reported by NBC News, a study conducted by Data Center Watch found that data centre opponents had blocked or delayed around 75 AI projects in the US worth $130 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Describing this as a “structural shift”, it noted data centre construction had become a major political issue with opponents focusing on the effects of those developments “on energy consumption and the environment, among other concerns”.
Meanwhile, in The Netherlands, data centre developer, Goodman, sued grid operator, TenneT, seeking a court order to force TenneT to provide a grid connection to a 70MW data centre in Haarlemmermeer (near Amsterdam). The electricity demand is equal to around 70% of the electricity used by households in Amsterdam.
TenneT had informed Goodman it was unable to provide the capacity due to grid congestion. The court ruled in TenneT’s favour in April. Goodman has since appealed the ruling.
ARTICLE 19 and Leitmotiv have intervened on behalf of TenneT. Sjoerd Lopik, attorney at De Roos, stated: “In an era of climate crisis, grid congestion and the fight for digital sovereignty, it is indefensible that a massive data centre is given priority access to the electricity grid over Dutch citizens, businesses, and public institutions. These broader public interests must be central in this case. That is why these NGOs have joined the proceedings.”
Jelle Klaas, human rights lawyer at PILP, added: “If Goodman wins, the interests of data centres will again trump all other interests that play a role. If TenneT wins, local authorities and grid operators keep an important tool to limit the amount of energy that huge data centres want to claim.”
At which point, it’s probably worth reminding ourselves of Doyle’s sage words: “You cannot have an AI strategy without an energy strategy.” But it’s also true that you cannot have an energy strategy that is titled heavily in favour of AI at the expense of the populace.
And it’s also true that you cannot have an AI strategy without a water usage strategy, an environmental strategy, a housing strategy, an employment strategy, a transport strategy, an education strategy, a cost of living strategy etc. That’s not a knee-jerk anti-AI argument, it’s merely taking AI’s proponents at their word. If they are to be believed, an AI strategy will need to address its effects on everything and everyone because it will affect everything and everyone.
Our digital ambitions are not purely bound by our grid capacity. They’re bound by our everything else capacity.
Of course, the AI cheerleaders could be wrong, in which case you might ask why the urgency to build so many vast AI data centres with less accountability? But if they’re right, should we not be asking the question: Can you have an AI strategy without an everything else strategy?
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