Echelon Data Centres is seeking planning permission for a data center in Kilmeaden, Ireland.

The application, filed in early September, calls for the demolition of existing property and the construction of three two-storey data centers, an energy center building, a battery storage facility, a solar farm, and a rewilding area, as well as two offices, a gas above-ground installation, and a village center.

The 108-hectare property is currently home to a former cheese factory, located south of the R680 road in Kilmeaden, a village in County Waterford near Ireland’s southern coast.

Opposition to the facility has been fierce, with local residents making hundreds of submissions against the planning application.

Starwood Capital-backed Echelon has an existing footprint in Ireland, having broken ground at a 200MW County Wicklow data center campus in September.

Phase one of the project was set to go live in 2021, but delays caused by EirGrid’s de facto moratorium on data center connections meant that Echelon only secured a grid connection last year. The company was also denied planning permission for an adjacent solar farm.

The moratorium was imposed because of Ireland’s energy woes, which have been particularly acute. The percentage of Ireland’s metered energy consumed by data centers currently hovers at around 20 percent, according to a report released by the country’s Central Statistics Office in June of this year.

Backlash against data centers in the country has also been fierce, with many projects facing delays. In July, Ireland’s National Trust appealed against planning permission granted to a data center in County Louth, and in May, bestselling author Sally Rooney and others contested Mayo County Council’s decision to grant permission to Avaio for a new data center.

Founded in 2016 and launched in 2019, Echelon Data Centres now has six sites in operation and development across Ireland and the UK with a total potential capacity of up to 500MW.