Digital Realty is set to build a gas power plant to supply energy to its data center in Grange Castle Business Park in Dublin, Ireland.

The 9MW DUB4 data center cost Digital Realty around €100 million ($117.3m) to construct, but was denied a grid connection despite two appeals from the company, as reported by the Business Post Ireland (BP).

However, on July 22, Ireland’s government approved a new policy statement that would allow companies to install private electricity wires and build their own power plants – including those running on fossil fuels.

Digital Realty’s MD of Ireland and the UK, Seamus Dunne, told the BP that the company will now partner up with an energy company to build its own gas plant.

“The policy is great news for us and for keeping the digital economy in Ireland running,” Dunne said.

Prior to the change of policy, companies were subject to grid connection approval from ESB Networks. Now, “stranded” data centers will be able to power up using microgrids.

According to a report by Mitchell McDermott, an industry consultancy, Ireland has around €6.5 billion ($7.6bn) of stranded data center assets.

The policy statement will be fully detailed after the summer recess, and is expected to pass into law during the second quarter of 2026.

Digital Realty’s Dunne noted that this is still a more expensive option for the company than just connecting to the grid would have been, but told BP: “I think the private wire solution, at least gives us a chance of developing some capacity, and releasing some energy capacity to help advance the economy.”

Digital Realty first entered the Irish market in 2006 and now has nine data centers in the country. Further expansions were paused after it was refused a grid connection in 2021.

The Dublin area is subject to a defacto moratorium on new data centers imposed by state-owned grid operator EirGrid, which has said it won’t grant any new application requests until 2028.

Several operators have previously looked to get around this with on-site power generation or connections to the country’s gas network, though to date, many faced difficulty getting planning approval from local officials. The new policy stance could enable previously denied projects to gain planning approval with adjustments to their proposals.

Among those to have failed to secure planning permission in the Dublin area over the past couple of years are Google, Vantage, Servecentric, and Equinix. The latter application wanted to deploy ten gas-fired generators and seven plant rooms on the campus, but was denied in February 2025.