Google states it is on a mission to “use as little energy as possible”. Credit: Shutterstock.

Google has been refused permission to build a data centre outside of Ireland’s capital, Dublin. 

The refusal was down to the Alphabet-owned tech superpower failing to meet some of Ireland’s sustainability requirements. 

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Google had planned to develop a 72,400m² (779,310ft²) data storage facility but the proposal was rejected by South Dublin County Council in a decision published last week. 

The council wrote that Google hadn’t provided enough detail on “how the proposal will impact the power supply once operational” in 2027, according to the decision. 

There are currently two Google data centres in Dublin and the city has been home to the company’s European headquarters for many years. 

Google’s website states: “In September 2011, we announced that we would invest €75m [$83.67m] to convert a warehouse on an industrial site in West Dublin into our third energy-efficient data center in Europe. To date, we’ve invested approximately €500m to build and operate data centers on our Dublin site.” 

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It also states that it is on a “quest to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy, everywhere, by 2030” due to various environmental initiatives. 

Facilities such as data centres are drawn to Ireland because of its moderate climate and role as a regional business hub, and are forecast to consume a third of the country’s energy by 2026, up from 18% in 2022. 

However, electricity grid constraints are one of Ireland’s biggest infrastructure challenges, in part exacerbated by the growth of power-hungry data centres that enable cloud services and AI. 

Google says it chose Dublin for its data centres initially because the capital “has the right combination of energy infrastructure, developable land, and available workforce for the data center. We were able to take the same approach to construction as we did in Hamina, Finland, using local engineering and construction expertise to redevelop an existing building.” 

The company has a month to appeal the council’s decision and a spokesperson for Google declined to comment on the rejection.