Ireland’s National Trust has appealed to the national planning regulator regarding the conditional planning permission for a data center in County Louth, Ireland.

Filed by An Taisce to An Bord Pleanála on July 24, the appeal regards a data center and energy center proposed at a Premier Periclase production facility in Drogheda on Boyne Road.

Planning permission for the project was awarded in June of this year.

Premier Periclase Limited – the applicant – seeks to develop a three-story data center towards the south of the parcel, with an overall height of 29 meters and a total ground floor area of 26,550 sqm (285,780 sq ft), as well as a three-story energy center building spanning 6,655 sqm (71,635 sq ft) accommodating nine gas engines, electrical rooms, mechanical plant rooms, telecommunication rooms, switchrooms, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) rooms and equipment.

The project would see solar panels deployed on the roof of both buildings, and the data center would have a “green wall” on an adjacent structure.

Finally, Premier Periclase wants to develop a single-story facility operations center, and ancillary structures including security buildings, an ESB substation, a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Compound, a cooling compound substation, and a thermal store compound.

The majority of the data center’s power will be sourced from natural gas, per previous reports.

As reported by Louth Live, An Taisce’s objection to the project spans a variety of concerns, including the vast energy consumption of data centers, the potential carbon emissions, climate impacts, water abstraction, and the impact it could have on local water supplies.

This is not the first time An Taisce has raised concerns about the project. The group previously commented on the application in December 2024, with planning Seán O’Callaghan and senior planning and environmental policy officer Phoebe Duvall saying the development “would facilitate a breach of the emissions reduction obligations under the Climate Act.”

Drogheda is already home to a data center used by Amazon, at the IDA Business Park on Donore Road. It was due to come online last year, with another two data centers also planned for the park.