Echelon breaks ground on Ireland's first Green Energy Park in Arklow

Echelon Data Centres has started construction of Ireland's first Green Energy Park at its DUB20 campus in Arklow, Co Wicklow. Darragh O'Brien, Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, put the first spade in the ground at the site. It is the first facility to meet the Green Energy Park criteria set out under the Government's Large Energy Users Action Plan (LEAP).

What a Green Energy Park has to be

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment defines Green Energy Parks as developments that co-locate large energy users, such as data centres, with renewable generation. They must run primarily on renewables, backed by battery storage or dispatchable backup from energy centers. They also have to show reduced reliance on the national grid. The department's definition adds system-wide benefits such as using waste heat for district heating.

What Echelon is building at DUB20

The Arklow park combines the DUB20 data centre, a new shared 220kV electricity substation, onsite solar generation and onsite battery storage. The substation will connect both DUB20 and SSE's 800MW Arklow Bank Wind Park 2 offshore wind project to the national grid.

The campus will have two onsite energy centers. One can export power to the grid when renewable output is low, which Echelon describes as the largest grid-supporting asset in Ireland that is not a dedicated power station. Echelon will also use hydrotreated vegetable oil to cut onsite generation emissions by up to 90%.

Cost, timing and economic impact

DUB20 is part of Echelon's EUR 4.2bn investment in the DUB20 and DUB30 facilities in Wicklow. It sits on the former Irish Fertilisers Industries site at the Avoca River Business Park and is due to be completed by 2028. A KPMG assessment found the two campuses could generate up to EUR 7.5bn in economic output during construction and EUR 801m a year once operating.

O'Brien called the project "forward-planned, sustainable development" of the kind the Government wants under LEAP. Echelon Chief Strategy Officer Graeme McWilliams said the project follows the model the framework envisions.