Ireland’s Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) has proposed offering discounted gas connections to new data centers on the condition that they accept the risk of planned supply interruptions during periods of high demand.

First reported by the Irish Times, the regulator warned that data center growth is likely to strain the country’s capacity to secure enough gas to meet national demand during severe cold weather. Analysis by the CRU found that 17 planned data centers seeking a gas connection would be the equivalent of six 500MW combined cycle gas turbine power plants.

Under the proposed scheme, new data centers would receive a tariff discount in exchange for accepting that their gas supply may be curtailed when national demand is very high. During these periods, facilities would temporarily power down, delay energy-intensive operations, or switch to an alternative fuel source, likely the site’s backup diesel generators. The exact amount discounted has not been disclosed.

The regulator ruled out offering interruptible connections to power generators, stating that doing so “would transfer an unacceptable level of security of supply risk from the gas system to the electricity system.” It said data centers, in comparison, could build flexibility into their operations to absorb interruptions.

The proposal has been submitted for public consultation, and is currently under review.

The proposal follows a moratorium on new data center electricity grid connections in the Dublin area that was lifted on the condition that facilities provide their own power. This is likely to be through on-site gas generation in the interim before renewable supply comes online.

The news was criticized by some in the political sphere, with Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan calling it a series of “workarounds” in place of a moratorium on data center gas connections.

Data centers in Ireland are one of the biggest consumers on the national grid. According to reports published in July, data centers in Ireland consumed 23 percent of the country’s total metered electricity during 2025. According to data published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), data centers in the country consumed 7,663GWh of power during the year, up ten percent from the year before, which stood at 6,973GWh.

In January, the Irish government laid out plans to support the colocation of data centers with renewable energy infrastructure to support grid resilience. The plan states that the parks will focus on the most energy-intensive industrial sectors in the period after 2030, including data centers, with plan-led sites expected to be at the scale of hundreds of megawatts of capacity.