{"id":297434,"date":"2026-01-22T10:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/297434\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T10:06:10","slug":"ireland-could-see-electricity-shortage-event-in-next-two-to-five-years-regulator-warns-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/297434\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland could see \u2018electricity shortage event\u2019 in next two to five years, regulator warns \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rapid growth in energy demand, driven primarily by data centres<\/a>, could contribute to an \u201celectricity shortage event<\/a>\u201d in the next two to five years, the energy regulator has said.<\/p>\n

A risk preparedness plan published by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) examines such an event. The CRU said the plan was not a prediction but considered crisis-type events, which are \u201creasonable worst-case scenarios\u201d.<\/p>\n

It examined rapid growth in electricity demand above historic trends, which it deemed as \u201clikely\u201d. Predicted growth is \u201clargely attributed to growth in data centre loads<\/a>\u201d, the paper found. <\/p>\n

This could combine with growth in electrical demand for heat and transport systems and factors such as seasonal demand spikes, cold snaps or low wind generation.<\/p>\n

Such a scenario could mean an \u201cadequacy gap<\/a>\u201d between electricity supply and demand. The CRU said an adequacy gap would not be \u201cimminent\u201d and could be identified and planned for in advance.<\/p>\n

The plan examines how plausible scenarios are, rating them from \u201cvery likely\u201d to \u201cextremely unlikely\u201d. The CRU said \u201clikely\u201d is a \u201cshorthand term for the probability of an event <\/a>which could occur at a frequency of one in two-to-five years\u201d. <\/p>\n

A CRU spokesman said if maximum demand forecast materialised, \u201cit is plausible <\/a>that there could be an electricity shortage event within the next two- to five-year period\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"\"Will global turmoil matter to Irish politics in 2026? <\/p>\n

He said steps to mitigate this had been completed and put in place in recent years, pointing to emergency generation capacity in place as well as new policy on connecting large users like data centres, adding that any forecast deficits in generation had been mitigated already.<\/p>\n

Dr Paul Deane of the Sustainability Institute at University College Cork argued the chance of a power outage was low, with an ability to \u201cpress the pause button\u201d before demand became unsustainable.<\/p>\n

However, Dr Muireann Lynch, senior research officer at the ESRI, said the paper suggested a \u201chigh chance<\/a>\u201d of supply interruptions for some customers before 2030, although the amount of power loss would be quite low. <\/p>\n

She said policymakers should consider if rapid expansions in demand are \u201cin the best interests of the country at present\u201d, while regulators and system operators should \u201curgently determine why we are at risk of being unable to build enough generation to meet increased demand\u201d. <\/p>\n

Social Democrats\u2019 climate spokeswoman Jennifer Whitmore said the report was a warning of risks associated with the Government\u2019s approach to the management of data centres.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is becoming increasingly urgent that Government applies a holistic, strategic approach to dealing with this resource-hungry infrastructure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapid growth in energy demand, driven primarily by data centres, could contribute to an \u201celectricity shortage event\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,444,18,35808,15912,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-297434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-data-centres","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-energy-costs","12":"tag-energy-crisis","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115938196490016089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}