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investigates
data centres
Published 04 June 2025
Ireland is the data centre capital of the world with 89 data centres storing your Instagram reels, TikTok dances and endless folders of photos that keep us connected in the digital world.
Data goliaths like this are at the centre of the rise in AI, with every ChatGPT prompt or AI-generated image requiring huge amounts of data to be processed.
But why should you care?
Because data centres have a major environmental cost too.
In order to keep social media scrolling, data centres use huge numbers of backup and emergency generators to stay online when the electrical grid can’t provide them with enough power.
These generators run on fossil fuels and our investigative work has exposed that generators attached to Irish data centres have released huge quantities of CO2 over the past few years.
To provide a complete picture of this energy-sapping industry, The Journal Investigates mapped — for the first time — all operating and planned data centres in Ireland.
Few would have heard of EdgeConneX, but its data centre campus in Dublin has released by far the most CO2 emissions from backup and emergency generators than any other data centre location in Ireland.
The data centre campus, located in Lucan, Dublin, has emitted close to 130,000 tonnes of CO2 since coming online in 2017. It is not the largest in terms of size compared to some others, but its reliance on backup and emergency generators is significant.
The average annual emissions from this campus equate to running over 3,400 cars for a year.
Large data centres in Ireland are required to hold a Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) permit and report their emissions each year.
A total of 24 GHG permits have been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to data centre operators in Ireland - the majority of which are located in Dublin.
Since 2005, these data centres have emitted 181,553 tonnes of CO2, the vast majority coming since 2017 as more and more data centres set up in Ireland.
Since 2017, the average annual emissions from these data centres is equivalent to the fumes spewed out by over 4,500 cars a year.
Many data centres are located close together in business and industrial parks on the outskirts of Dublin. The proximity of these energy-demanding buildings puts further strain on the electricity grid.
In this ‘cluster’ of data centres in Lucan, almost all of the Big Tech players are present.
It’s not the only cluster located around Dublin, with another located in Clonshaugh.
A third cluster is also present nearby in Blanchardstown.
And just over the border in Meath is Meta’s sprawling campus of data centres.
The largest data centres, like Meta’s, require Industrial Emissions licences in addition to the GHG permit.
The EPA has granted 15 of these licences for data centres.
Experts say that data centres of this size would use the equivalent amount of electricity as a small city such as Kilkenny.
More data centres like these are also on the way. There are currently nine pending applications for Industrial Emissions licences, showing the appetite for data centres in Ireland is far from over.
In total, our investigation found that there are 89 data centres in Ireland, roughly in line with industry estimates.
However, we also found 11 more data centres that are at various stages of development and may already be operational in some capacity. And over 30 more have been granted planning permission or are under appeal to An Bórd Pleanála.
If all these data centres were built, there would be close to 130 data centres across the country.
With over 40 more data centres in the pipeline, this continued growth in the number of data centres in Ireland will not only lead to greater emissions from emergency and backup generators, it will also put more strain on Ireland’s already stretched electricity grid.
This matters because Ireland is already oversaturated with data centres and our electricity grid is struggling to keep up with demand.
The Irish grid is already under the most pressure in the EU from data centres, accounting for 18% of the national electricity consumption.
This is significantly higher than other European countries, a recent EU Commission report has found. The Netherlands (5.2%) and Luxembourg (4.8%) are the next two highest countries.
“Building a data centre in any other country in northwest Europe would produce less climate pollution than building it in Ireland”
This means it may be environmentally beneficial for data centres to relocate elsewhere.
Adding more data centres in Ireland is also likely to eat into any gains made by adding renewables into the energy mix and threaten our ability to meet legally binding climate targets.
A spokesperson for Microsoft cited “new challenges” posed by the power demands of artificial intelligence in meeting sustainability goals, but added, “we remain resolute in our commitment to meet our climate goals”. No response was received from Google or EdgeConneX, while spokespeople for Amazon and Meta both pointed to how their respective companies match electricity use with 100% renewable energy.
With data centres already a critical aspect of the modern digital world, the question is no longer whether we should have them, but whether we can accommodate them here in Ireland.
Reporter
Conor O’Carroll
Editor
Maria Delaney
Design
Jordan Huysmans & Niall O’Shea
Web development
Jordan Huysmans
This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe as part of a project with Pablo Jiménez Arandia in Spain.
Ireland is also still heavily reliant on fossil fuels for electricity and other European countries are ahead of us when it comes to renewable energy.
Dr Paul Deane, a senior lecturer in clean energy at University College Cork said because of this, “building a data centre in any other country in northwest Europe would produce less climate pollution than building it in Ireland”.
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