Microsoft Azure: Microsoft was permitted to operate its Dublin data center on gas

According to reports, Microsoft has been granted permission to construct a 170MW gas power facility for its Dublin data center expansion. As per a report from Business Post, the cloud giant applied in December to construct a gas power facility for its $1 billion Dublin data center campus currently under construction at Grange Castle. The application has been authorized, according to the same online resource. 

The plant is anticipated to cost $111 million and will be used daily to provide power to the data center, as well as to sustain it if it must be disconnected from Ireland's overburdened national grid. 21 reserve diesel generators will accompany the 'unprecedentedly large-scale' plant to reduce the facility's effect on the grid.

Ireland effectively halted the development of new data centers in Dublin in 2022, with the utility EirGrid announcing that no new data centers would be permitted to attach to the grid in Dublin until 2028. Ireland has stated that it will not restrict data centers, with Climate Minister Eamon Ryan characterizing them as a crucial and beneficial industry for the nation. However, there have been warnings about the amount of power that data centers will consume, which could consume renewable energy that is required elsewhere and undermine Ireland's decarbonization goal. The Irish Labour Party has demanded a moratorium on data center construction.