Paul Murphy warns data centres are locking Ireland into gas
Paul Murphy spoke in the Dáil on 27 Sep 2023, arguing the bill only alters corporate arrangements for Airvia and Gas Networks Ireland and fails to address climate obligations. He said the bill misses an opportunity to bring semi-state bodies within the Climate Action Act and to stop new fossil fuel connections.
Main critique of the bill
Paul Murphy said the legislation limits itself to corporate changes for Airvia and Gas Networks Ireland and contains nothing about Gas Networks Ireland's climate obligations. He described the omission of semi-state bodies from the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 as a deliberate, mile-wide loophole.
Concerns about new gas connections and emissions
He highlighted Gas Networks Ireland's proposals to add more than 17,000 new connections in five years, warning each new connection locks in fossil fuel use for decades. He cited UCC research figures for required reductions in gas demand by 2040 in power, residential and enterprise sectors to meet carbon budgets.
Retrofitting and the warmer home scheme
Paul Murphy criticised government retrofitting programmes, saying almost all homes given new boilers under the free, better energy, warmer home scheme in the first half of the year received oil or gas boilers. He warned those installations will burn fossil fuels for at least the next 15 years and therefore undermine emissions targets.
Data centres and the Gas Act
He warned that, faced with electricity network constraints, many data centres are turning to direct gas connections and that a number are already in the process of connecting to the gas grid. He urged amending the Gas Act to prohibit data centres from connecting and criticised the government, including the Green Party, for failing to act.
Proposed solutions and political critique
Paul Murphy said he will table amendments to oblige Gas Networks Ireland to reduce connections, refuse data centre connections and plan an orderly wind-down of the gas network. He argued for a fully re-nationalised, not-for-profit energy system to plan a rapid transition to 100% low-cost renewable energy and criticised the current government's ideology for blocking more radical measures.
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to see that this bill limits itself solely to changing the corporate arrangements of Airvia and Gas Networks Ireland. It is a missed opportunity on so many levels. Not many people are aware of the fact that semi-state bodies like Gas Networks Ireland, like Dublin Bus, the ESB and Quilche are not legally subject to the state's emissions reduction commitments under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. This bill was an opportunity, still is an opportunity, to legislate to ensure that Gas Networks Ireland and other semi-state bodies are brought within the scope of the Climate Action Act. It is a very deliberate loophole, a mile wide, that they are not included. Related to this, the current bill has nothing to say about the climate obligations of Gas Networks Ireland. Nothing to say about its recent proposals to the CRU to make more than 17,000 new connections to the Gas Networks in the next five years. What impact will all these connections have on our emissions targets? Every new connection means locking in fossil fuel use for decades. Gas Networks Ireland should not be increasing the number of connections to the Gas Networks, it should be working to massively reduce and then eliminate them entirely. UCC research has found that in order to meet our carbon budgets, gas demand in 2040 must be reduced by 93% compared to currently in the power sector, by 85% in the residential sector, and 67% in enterprise. So why then are even the government's own retrofitting programmes locking people into fossil fuel use? Almost all of the homes given new boilers under the free, better energy, warmer home scheme in the first half of this year had oil or gas installed. These boilers will be burning fossil fuels for at least the next 15 years. The new connections Gas Networks Ireland are proposing are to include 14,600 new domestic connections and 2,629 industrial and commercial connections. How many of those connections will be data centres? Faced with a moratorium on connection to the electricity network, due to the massive pressure they are placing on our electricity supply, forecast to be 30% by 2030 of all our consumption, many data centres have turned to connecting directly to the gas network. So cutting out the middleman in terms of burning fossil fuels to create electricity to power data centres, to going directly to just burning the fossil fuels to power a data centre. Last year, the Minister wrote to Gas Networks Ireland asking us not to sign any more contracts to connect data centres powered by on-site fossil fuel generation. Gas Networks Ireland responded to say that they are mandated under the Gas Act to supply connections requested by third parties. So the thing that the government should do, the thing that we should do as a doll, is to amend this Gas Act to ensure that no data centres are allowed to connect to the gas network. But the government has not done that. The government has not acted. Now a dozen data centres are in the process of connecting directly to the gas grid. Microsoft is building a 100 million euro, 170 megawatt gas power plant in Grange Castle. Shame on the government for failing to stop this. It seems that nothing is more important to this government, including the Green Party, than sucking up to big tech and big multinationals. The data centres that they dump here barely create any jobs and are nothing but a burden on our energy system and on our water supply. People Before Profit has introduced a bill to ban data centre construction and we will continue to campaign for this because it is necessary if we are going to meet our climate targets. We will also be bringing amendments to this bill at committee stage to oblige Gas Networks Ireland to reduce the number of connections to the gas network, to refuse connections to data centres, and to plan for the orderly wind down of the gas network as soon as is possible. The best way to do this would be as part of a fully re-nationalised energy system, publicly owned on a not-for-profit basis, that can plan for a rapid and just transition to 100% low-cost renewable energy. This would tackle the climate and cost of living crises simultaneously. Unfortunately, the neoliberal capitalist ideology of this government, again, including the Green Party, prevents them from considering the radical eco-socialist measures that are necessary to prevent climate chaos and are necessary to stop the impact of the cost of living crisis on ordinary people. To stop climate change, we need a left government willing to take on big business and the big polluters to bring this about, not a timid Green Party in coalition with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that is missing opportunity after opportunity to actually take action on the climate crisis.
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