The €450-million Ennis data centre has been four years moving through various stages including strategic site assessment, zoning & planning. Art will create between 400- 450 permanent jobs when the data centre campus is fully operational. Up to 1,200 will be employed in construction and 600 jobs in support services.
The new Government Policy Statement on the role of Data Centres in Ireland’s Enterprise Strategy was published on Wednesday 27th July 2022 and the Ennis Campus is considered to align well with the policies set out therein.
Mr Tom McNamara, CEO of Art Data Centres, the developer of the project, welcomed the announcement. “This is great news for this data centre campus and for Clare as the project will be a key pillar of the Ennis 2040 Economic Plan for the area which was launched by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Leo Varadkar in 2021”
The campus will comprise six data halls of 33mw each, Energy Centre & Vertical Farm designed on a flexible and modular basis, covering 145 acres and 1.3 million sq ft. Construction of the Art Data Centre Campus will be phased over a seven-year year period commencing in 2022. It has been designed by data centre specialists Colin Hyde of ARC:MC, and Robert Thorogood of HDRInc. It has access to 200 mega-watts of power from both the network grid and gas generation on site & aligns with the current CRU requirements for dispatchable Power & being located in an unconstrained area. The proposed site, adjacent to Ennis, was zoned in 2019 for ‘Data Centres & Power Generating Infrastructure’.
The 200 MW Ennis Project underpins the Government Policy Statement as it has the key infrastructure on the 145 acres including access to Grid, Main Gas Interconnector running through site which facilitates self-generation availability on site, and access to both wind and solar farms in Clare through the Grid or Private Wire. It also has the key availability of existing high-speed fibre located both on & adjacent to the site . The energy centre turbines have been designed to run on green hydrogen which the Minister Eamon Ryan has indicted he is hopeful will be available by 2030 when the Project is due for completion
“This Ennis Project fulfils the Government’s key requirements immediately while state bodies, regulators and the electricity sector work to upgrade infrastructure, connect more renewable energy and ensure security of supply,” Mr McNamara said. “The infrastructure that is available in the Ennis site will assist Government in national ambitions to deliver ongoing opportunities for the country in the tech industry.”