An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) has granted planning permission to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for contentious plans to construct three new data centres in north Dublin.
In the ruling, three years after plans were first lodged in December 2022, Universal Developers LLC has secured planning permission for three data centres with a combined power load of 73MW for the AWS data centre campus on a 65-acre land-holding at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15.
Fingal County Council had initially granted planning permission for the project in September 2023, but it was stalled after five third-party appeals were lodged with ACP.
The parties to appeal were Friends of the Earth, the Fingal One Future Group, Dr Colin Doyle, John Conway and Louth Environmental Group and Mannix Coyne.
The planning commission has granted planning permission to Universal Developers LLC having regard to an existing grid connection to the Cruiserath site and the existing infrastructure within the site to supply the proposed development.
ACP also granted planning permission having regard to an existing agreement with Eirgrid to provide power to the development and the location of the development with a wider development with an established data centre use.
ACP also took into account the initial agreement with Eirgrid which considered the overall power demand for the entire development which was then factored into the national demands under the Sectoral Ceiling Emissions.
ACP also reveals that it took into account the decision paper on Large Energy Users connection policy concerning data centres published by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) on December 12th of this year.
Planning permission is conditional on the requirement of the developer’s entering into a Corporate Purchase Power Agreement with a renewable energy provider prior to the operation of the data centre.
ACP has ordered that the amount of electricity generated by the new renewable energy projects shall be equal to, or greater than, the electricity requirements of the data centres in operation at any given time.
The commission concluded that the proposal would have no unacceptable impacts on the environment or on property in the vicinity.
The commission stated that the proposed development has the potential to impact negatively on the climate as a result of Greenhouse Gas emissions from electricity generation to power the data centre.
However, it stated that subject to the implementation of mitigation measures the residual impact on climate from the construction and operational phases would be minor-adverse and non-significant.
In granting planning permission, ACP stated that it adopted the report and recommendations of its own inspector in the case.
AWS had told ACP that its planning application “will have no significant impact on climate”.
In a report for AWS, AWN Consulting stated that the estimated greenhouse gas emissions for the permitted development range from 213,840 tonnes of CO2 this year to 132,164 tonnes of CO2 in 2030, which would then equate to 4.4 per cent of the Electricity Sector Emission ceiling.
The consultants stated that the greenhouse gas emissions for the overall data campus project at Cruiserath will be 262,535 CO2 tonnes in 2030, which equates to 8.8 per cent of the 2030 Electoral Sectoral emission ceiling.
AWN Consulting stated that the assessment of the proposed development and overall project“has ensured that the proposed development and overall project is climate-proofed”.