Data centers aren’t the sole cause of Ireland’s high electricity prices, but they do contribute to them. The biggest cause is Ireland’s reliance on imported natural gas.
That said, data centers are heading for 30% of the country’s electricity use, and they contribute significantly to high prices. Effectively a subsidy from Irish consumers to Big Tech. There are other externalized costs, too. E.g. Supporting Big Tech data center infrastructure is delaying house building. Ireland is lucky in that most of Big Tech pays its European taxes to the Irish government, so there’s a quid pro quo here. But that is less true for other parts of the world.
Some people think AI may need as big a share of other countries’ electricity - who should be paying for this?
Government warned of rising household bills as data centres strain grid
Is Ireland selling its electricity to the data centers at a discount?🤔
Likely at bulk wholesale rates. So yes, at a discount compared to what the average consumer or business pays.
If there’s not enough electricity to go around, perhaps they shouldn’t do that.
In the states, it’s common for consumers to pay on a sliding scale — the rate increases every X number of kWh you use. It’s not fair that businesses aren’t charged the same.
At least in my area, businesses pay a higher tier than residential customers.
The rationale here is that if you don’t give handouts like that to major corporations, they’ll go build their data center somewhere they do get handouts. And then you lose the tax income and jobs they generate.
Of course it sucks that the logic works like that but they do have the ball and the shareholders expect them to take it only to the most profitable location.
Imo, instead of giving handouts to corporations, governments should spend that money making their state a nice place to live, and supporting small businesses and entreprenuers. Then lots of smart, hard working people will move there because it is a nice place to live, and make their own businesses to support the local economy.
Yeah this is what I’m not understanding about these stories. Why not charge these datacenters according to the pressure they’re putting on the power network?
Large high volume purchasing always comes at a discount. It shouldn’t for something like energy but it does.