Data centre giants warn minister over delays to back-up energy permits
Microsoft, Amazon and Google seek to expedite applications to EPA for industrial emissions licences needed to ease any future power emergencies
Data centre owners have privately warned the government that they may be unable to reduce their energy demand in any power emergencies next winter due to delays in obtaining permits for their back-up diesel generators.
Last week, Microsoft, Amazon and Google met Simon Coveney, the Minister for Enterprise, and voiced concern over the pace at which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is processing their applications for industrial emissions licences at their data centre hubs.
The Business Post has learned that the companies raised the possibility that they might leave themselves open to prosecution if they had to switch to their own back-up generators in periods of constrained supply to the national grid, because they might not have received licences that would allow them to do this.
