Google says it needs to build another data centre in Dublin

The tech giant has lodged a planning application with South Dublin County Council for a 72,400 square metre data centre at the Grange Castle business park.

In a planning report submitted with the application, Arup says that once the data centre is operational in 2027, it will provide about 50 extra jobs, including 25 direct staff. About 800 temporary jobs would be created during the construction phase.

Data centres have become increasingly contentious due to amount of energy they consumer – close to 20pc of the power on the Irish electricity grid.

However the Government has remained supportive of them, because the computing industry is supporting more than 90,000 jobs.

Google's planning report says the company has been in Ireland for more than 20 years, and at the Grange Castle campus for more than 10. After an initial investment in a data centre there in 2012, it completed a second one in 2019.

"Google Ireland carefully selects the locations for data centres to be close to population centres in order to minimise the latency in serving the query, and the costs associated with transmitting data," its planning report says.

In relation to greenhouse gas emissions, Google points out that it has signed a 14-year power purchase agreement with Power Capital Renewable Energy for 58MW from the Tullabeg solar farm in Co Wexford through an existing grid connection.

It says the agreement has allowed the development of a new renewable-energy project which was given planning permission in 2022 and is now being built. This will "add new renewable energy to the grid that Google Ireland's offices and data centres run on, contributing to the decarbonisation of Ireland's electricity system", it claims.

The tech company says its current projections indicate that, once operational, its agreement with Power Capital will help its offices and data centres to reach 60pc carbon-free energy next year, measured on an hourly basis.

Google says it will put photovoltaic panels on the roof of a facility support depot at Grange Castle, which will generate 20pc of the energy needed by the building.

There are also measures to allow district heating to be provided, whenever excess heat is produced at the Google operations. "This has the potential to deliver heat for both space heating and water heating needs to nearby building through a network of insulated underground pipelines," it says.

The system will only work, however, when "suitable off-takers" for the heating are available.

Pointing out that it currently employs over 9,000 staff in Ireland, Google argues that its data centres are the engines that keep the internet running, along with services such as the Google cloud, Google search function, Google maps and workspaces, which includes Gmail and Google Docs.

"The use of AI has increased the demand for computing power across Cloud and Edge data centres," it says, adding that the proposed third centre in Grange Castle can help meet the "growing and increased demand for computing power as a result of AI".