The Irish government is preparing legislation to make it easier for data centers and other large load users to power their facilities independently.

According to reports from the Irish Times, the government is set to publish a new policy next month on “private wire” agreements that will permit private operators to build and operate electricity infrastructure, including between power sources and data centers.

The policy will completely reform the current process where the semi-state-owned electricity company ESB holds a monopoly over the right to own and operate the transmission infrastructure.

According to reports, a national policy statement on the proposed policy will be published this July. Following this, the government is expected to make the legislative and regulatory changes to facilitate the new policy.

“The private wires policy will unlock private sector resources to build new electricity infrastructure by expanding the rights of private undertakings to connect supply directly with demand,” a spokesperson for Minister of Energy Darragh O’Brien told the Irish Times.

The belief within the government is that the new policy will inhibit greater private investment in new power infrastructure and allow for additional space on the grid to be freed up for other sectors.

It is anticipated the policy will support the construction and operation of private wires in specific scenarios, such as where it’s determined that allowing private investment is the most efficient approach to a new connection, and is a matter of public interest. This will include private lines from a generator to a consumer as well as hybrid connections between two facilities that will share a grid connection.

In addition, the policy is expected to allow for the expansion of self-supply and allow for lines to be run in public or shared spaces.

According to reports, Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in favor of the legislation and is pushing for it to be fast-tracked.

Last year, reports surfaced that US hyperscalers, including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, were urging the state to allow them to build their own private power lines to connect directly to renewable projects in the country.

The decision comes as Ireland continues to grapple with constraints across its grid, which led Dublin to enforce a de facto moratorium on new data center builds in the city in 2022. This has led the country to become a less attractive market for developers who are finding it increasingly difficult to acquire land and a grid connection for their facilities. As a result, there are fears that the country could miss out on the AI boom if it is unable to deal with grid constraints.

In February, the Irish energy regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU), published a decision paper to manage how data centers connect to the grid. Under the proposed policies new data centers connecting to the electricity network will be required to provide generation and/or storage capacity to match the requested connection capacity.