Amazon has been granted permission to build three data centres in Dublin, doubling the company’s capacity at its campus in the next couple of years.
The tech giant, which lodged the plans for the site at its data campus centre near Mulhuddart in December 2022, is seeking to build three more data centres at its Amazon Web Services data centre campus at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15. The three buildings have a combined power load of 73MW.
The plans were lodged by Universal Developers, and will bring to six the number of data centres planned for the site. One centre, previously granted permission, is already operational, while two others are under construction.
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As part of the conditions of granting permission, Amazon has to put in the infrastructure to develop a district heating scheme that would recycle heat from the data centres, similar to the one it recently put into operation in Tallaght. The data centres already have an agreement with EirGrid for the site that would enable the new data centres to be connected to the grid.
The company has also committed to using renewable energy to power all its data centres by 2030, and said it expects to reach this target earlier than expected.
“The proposed development represents a significant investment that will create additional direct, indirect and induced economic and employment benefits, in addition to those that have already been generated by AWS,” the company said in a statement. “As such, it is fully consistent with the Government’s preference, as set out in the Government statement on the role of data centres, for data centres to be associated with strong economic activity and employment.”
The plans had faced opposition from environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, grassroots group Fingal One Future, and environmental and social justice NGO Gluaiseacht, due to the potential climate impacts of the new facilities.
