Energy costs surge as pressure mounts on Government for urgent action
Pressure is mounting for emergency government action to address rapidly rising energy costs.
Price hikes announced by Electric Ireland this afternoon as well as a report showcase the cost burden of data centres energy use is being placed on households has led politicians to demand urgent action. Sinn Féin Leader Mary Lou McDonald TD said price increases will put further pressure on working households and called on the government to provide energy credits
Electric Ireland has announced increases of 8% in their electricity prices and 7.7% for gas, which Ms McDonald believes shows that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were wrong to ignore her party’s call for an emergency cost of living budget in recent weeks. “These hikes will be a body blow for working households already struggling to get by,” she said.
“This is the biggest electricity provider in the country hiking up electricity and gas bills from July." She stressed this will place a significant burden on families and "it's a hike they simply cannot afford."
“For weeks we called on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to introduce an emergency cost of living budget with energy credits to help households with these rip-off prices. They ignored us. Now the situation is set to get even worse with 1.1 million customers on the hook for bigger bills. This should be a serious wake up call for the government - energy credits are needed urgently.
“Households here are already paying the highest electricity prices in Europe. It’s unacceptable for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to continue sitting on their hands as the pressure mounts on people.”
Similarly, People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy has called for a moratorium on data centre development and for price controls on electricity. He cited the Friends of the Earth’s ‘The Cost of Data Centres’ report, which finds that high data centre energy demand and dependence on gas generated electricity in the Irish market is creating substantial additional electricity costs for households in Ireland.
Friends of the Earth found that, due to the impact of data centres on electricity demand and prices, households paid an average of an additional €263 for their electricity in 2021 to 2023, Pairing this with Electric Ireland’s price increases and it is estimated that these increases will cost many households an additional €250 a year.
“On the day that Friends of the Earth published a report detailing the substantial extra electricity costs imposed by data centres on Irish households, it was announced that Electric Ireland is to increase electricity and gas prices by 8 percent and by 7.7 per cent respectively.
“This data centre levy on households’ electricity costs is a heavy price of successive governments letting data centres proliferate and consume ever increasing volumes of electricity, driving up prices for households.
“In addition, the growth in greenhouse emissions driven by data centre proliferation is also a large part of the reason why Ireland is getting nowhere near achieving its emissions reductions targets for 2030 .
“Friends of The Earth also found that even ambitious expansion of renewable energy will not be enough to offset the price effects of the increased electricity demand from continuing rapid data centre growth. There is no alternative - data centre demand for electricity must be suppressed.
“While this government and the previous government let data centre growth run wild, moratoriums on data centre development are spreading in the US, as local communities resist the impact of data centres on water and electricity supplies and prices, and on their environment. Last month, the US State of Maine endorsed a moratorium on building large data centres.
“The Irish government’s industrial policy is highly irresponsible and completely unsustainable. The slavish serving of the interests of big US tech at the expense of ordinary people and our environment must stop.
“We need an immediate moratorium on new data centre development to reduce electricity demand, and we need price controls to reduce electricity prices for households.”
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