Echelon Data Centres’ under-construction Dub20 data centre campus in Arklow, County Wicklow, is to become Ireland’s first green energy park, defined as a development that colocates large energy users with renewable energy generation.

Echelon received €1.7B in funding from Morgan Stanley and has pledged to increase data centre investment in Ireland and Europe. Its Dub20 campus, which includes a joint 220-kilovolt substation developed with SSE Renewables, will provide access to up to 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy from Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2.

Solar energy systems are planned as part of the development, with the potential to generate more than 6,000 megawatt-hours per annum. The campus will also include two on-site energy centres, one of which will be capable of exporting power to the national grid during periods of low renewable output.

In addition, Echelon said it will colocate battery energy storage systems and use hydrotreated vegetable oil to reduce on-site generation emissions by up to 90%.

“The Green Energy Park being developed at DUB20 is an important example of that model in action — co-locating data infrastructure with offshore wind, onsite solar, battery storage, and grid-supporting capacity,” Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien said in a statement. “This is exactly the kind of forward-planned, sustainable development we want to see delivered under the Large Energy Users Action Plan.”

The Dub20 campus, which forms part of Echelon’s €4.2B investment in the Dub20 and Dub30 data centre facilities in Wicklow, is at the former Irish Fertiliser Industries site at Avoca River Business Park in Arklow. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2028, and it is the first green energy park under development in Ireland.

“The establishment of Ireland’s first Green Energy Park at Dub20 demonstrates how large-scale digital infrastructure can be developed responsibly and in lockstep with national climate and energy policy,” Echelon co-founder Graeme McWilliams said in a statement.