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by Dannymetconan 96 days ago
21% of all energy is now being consumed by data centers with not enough investment in new forms of energy generation.

This is a policy decision by the government. More realistically it is a decision to not proactively do anything and instead rely on market prices to encourage new entrants to the market.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-dcmec/dat...
2 comments
lostlogin 96 days ago
Would any free market proponent like to chime in here? Why hasn’t this occurred?
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dmitri1981 96 days ago
It's not a free market in Europe since there is vast amount of planning regulations involved etc. If you want to see free markets in action, look at the electricity prices in Texas, where ironically renewables are also the dominant source. https://www.gridstatus.io/live
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thinkcontext 96 days ago
Texas is an interesting example because they allowed true unregulated rates for residential consumers. Consumers liked getting lower rates until that winter storm a few years ago had bills for some in the $thousands. Then they didn't like the free market so much.
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Gareth321 96 days ago
It did suck, but even when we factor that spike into the equation (including the outages), Texans end up paying for less for electricity in aggregate. Texas has also beefed up winter hardening requirements since then.
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Dannymetconan 96 days ago
It's actually fine in theory but it's nearly impossible to build anything in Ireland due to the way the planning laws work.

In an ideal situation we would be seeing a ramp up in production of all types to take advantage of the costs.

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redeeman 96 days ago
weird, because wouldnt part of the price for electricity include the network?

Are you telling me that the electricity purchasing is like me purchasing from amazon, but but never charges shipping, or factor it into the products, and then suddenly cant ship because all trucks are used and no money to buy new?

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Dannymetconan 96 days ago
Demand has gone up largely because of data centers. Supply has not increased enough so expensive options are the marginal supplier. Grids costs are also build into tariffs.

What is your point?

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