The energy company also said it was moving closer to a final investment decision on two substantial hydrogenated vegetable oil-fuelled power plants in Tarbert, Co Kerry, and Platin, Co Meath.
During a call with investment analysts covering SSE’s results for its 2024 financial year, Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE’s chief executive, said the company had noted that energy consumption in Ireland had come back strongly, highlighting how it was also helping to build new emergency generation here.
In Ireland, we are building emergency generation to try and keep pace with demand for things like data centres, SSE said. Photo: Getty Images
“I think generally, since the Ukraine war, we’ve seen consumption of energy across Europe come down, but I think that’s coming back strongly, and we see that particularly in Ireland,” he said.
“And in Ireland, we are, at the behest of the Green minister, building emergency generation to try and keep pace with demand for things like data centres, which are obviously powering much of this change. And indeed, the business over there recently signed a contract with Microsoft.
“So I think there are real tailwinds for us around demand,” he added.
In response to questions, a spokeswoman for SSE said that as countries electrified and digitalised their economies, there would be a growing need for electricity generation.
‘We are also playing our part in… accelerating critical longer-term sustainable solutions like onshore and offshore wind, an SSE spokesperson said.Getty Images
“We are playing our part in addressing that challenge in the near term by working with Irish authorities to advance a Temporary Emergency Generation (TEG) project at our Tarbert site in Co Kerry, while accelerating critical longer-term sustainable solutions like onshore and offshore wind as well as lower-carbon flexible generation projects,” she said.
A recent Climate Change Advisory Council report highlighted how electricity demand in Ireland had increased by 3.0pc in 2023, in contrast to the EU, where demand fell by 3.4pc over the same period.
The report said Ireland’s 2023 per capita demand was 6.9 MWh, higher than the EU average of 6.1 MWh.
SSE’s HVO projects in Tarbert and Platin await a decision from planning body An Bord Pleanála.
Ireland’s 2023 per capita demand was 6.9 MWh, higher than the EU average of 6.1 MWh
Last month, SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland announced Microsoft had entered into a long-term deal to offtake the output of the newly commissioned Lenalea Wind Farm near Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
The €40m site began commercial operations in December 2023 and is the first project delivered by FuturEnergy Ireland, a joint venture between the ESB and the Irish state-owned forestry service, Coillte.
