Our calls ledger: 9 open, 4 resolved, 3 of 4 right so far

3 of 4 resolved calls were right; 9 are still open

Hit rate = calls scored right / calls resolved. A call scored 'partly' counts as a miss. Editorial judgement

1. right made 3 Oct 2026 · expectation · due 6 Oct 2026

   Budget 2027 would contain no measure aimed at data centres.

   “Two absences are worth reporting if they hold: no data-centre measure at all (#1), and no AI compute money beyond the €10m (#11).” · research/budget-2027/pre-budget-brief.md, section 7 (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: Any tax, levy, rates, reporting or planning measure that names data centres in the Budget 2027 documents (6 Oct 2026).

   Outcome: No measure names data centres. They appear only as economic context, in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PDF pp. 12, 13, 17) and the FIF/ICNF assessment (p. 13). Read across 14 Budget documents on 6 Oct 2026. (source, 6 Oct 2026)

2. right made 3 Oct 2026 · expectation · due 6 Oct 2026

   Budget 2027 would add no AI compute money beyond the €10m gigafactory pledge.

   “Two absences are worth reporting if they hold: no data-centre measure at all (#1), and no AI compute money beyond the €10m (#11).” · research/budget-2027/pre-budget-brief.md, section 7 (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: Any Budget 2027 line for AI Factories, an AI gigafactory, EuroHPC, ICHEC or CeADAR beyond the €10m.

   Outcome: No AI Factory, gigafactory, EuroHPC, ICHEC or CeADAR line. National HPC and the AI Factory Antenna get continued support with no euro figure (Expenditure Report Part 2, PDF p. 72). The €10m pledge itself does not appear. (source, 6 Oct 2026)

3. right made 3 Oct 2026 · expectation · due 6 Oct 2026

   Budget 2027 would give the energy regulator (CRU) little or no Exchequer money for its data-centre and gas work.

   “The CRU is mainly levy-funded, so expect little; note an absence too” · research/budget-2027/pre-budget-brief.md, section 7, item 14 (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: Exchequer funding for the CRU in the Budget 2027 Expenditure Report.

   Outcome: No Exchequer money. The Expenditure Report notes 66 extra CRU posts sanctioned in the past year, 'non-Exchequer funded' (Part 3, PDF p. 48). (source, 6 Oct 2026)

4. partly made 7 Oct 2026 · claim

   No hyperscaler holds an Irish capacity-market award under its own name (claim based on the five T-4 auctions, 2025/26 to 2029/30).

   “No hyperscaler appears under its own name.” · issues/01-ireland-power-gap.md, section 3 (capacity-market wins), version of 7 Oct 2026

   Test: Search every capacity auction report, T-4 and T-1, for hyperscaler company names.

   Outcome: Right for the five T-4 auctions searched. Wrong once the T-1 auctions were added on 9 Oct 2026: Microsoft Ireland Energy Ltd won a one-year contract for 6.09 MW of existing capacity in T-1 2026/27 (FCAR2627T-1, PDF p. 16). The issue was corrected the same day. (source, 9 Oct 2026)

5. open made 3 Oct 2026 · scheduled date · due 27 Oct 2026

   The fault ride-through rule for data centres (Grid Code modification MPID 345) takes effect on 27 Oct 2026, capping each non-compliant site's demand.

   “MPID 345 approved 22 Sep 2026 (CRU2026145), in the Grid Code from 27 Oct 2026, with per-site caps on non-compliant data-centre demand” · research/mission/policy-and-consent.md, 'Update 3 Oct evening' (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: EirGrid's Grid Code includes MPID 345 in force from 27 Oct 2026, with per-site caps on non-compliant data-centre demand.

6. open made 3 Oct 2026 · scheduled date · due 3 Dec 2026

   The EU AI gigafactory call closes on 3 Dec 2026, not 12 Nov as first announced.

   “AI gigafactory deadline is 3 Dec, not 12 Nov” · research/hypotheses.md, log entry of 3 Oct 2026 (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking call for AI gigafactory consortia is still open after 12 Nov 2026 and closes on 3 Dec 2026. The sources disagree: EuroHPC's launch news (30 Jul 2026) said 12 Nov; the call page as read on 3 Oct 2026 and a TED change notice (674672-2026) give 3 Dec. Some repo documents still use 12 Nov.

   Where it will be scored

7. open made 3 Oct 2026 · expectation · due 3 Dec 2026

   No public AI gigafactory bid will name a host site in Ireland by the call deadline.

   “Dec 2026 AI gigafactory deadline and Ireland's absence” · research/newsletter-guidelines.md, suggested leads (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: Any bid, Government statement or consortium announcement naming an Irish host site by 3 Dec 2026. Basis at the time: the Government committed €10m to buy compute in a French bid, and no Irish-hosted bid was public (research/findings.md, 3 Oct 2026).

8. open made 4 Oct 2026 · scheduled date · due 9 Dec 2026

   EirGrid publishes the RESS 6 final auction results on 9 Dec 2026. Whatever wind and solar it contracts can't count toward a data centre's 80% renewables test (CRU/2025236, PDF p. 64).

   “RESS 6: bids 5–12 Nov 2026, provisional results 25 Nov, final results 9 Dec 2026” · research/mission/red-gates-plan.md (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

   Test: RESS 6 final results published on 9 Dec 2026; record the MW contracted, which leaves the pool data centres can buy from.

   Where it will be scored

9. open made 10 Oct 2026 · model range · due 7 Jul 2027

   Data centres' 2026 metered electricity use lands between 8.0 and 8.6 TWh, 23.9% to 25.2% of Ireland's metered electricity (2025: 7.66 TWh, 23.2%). The model labels itself a set of scenarios, not a forecast; we score its range anyway.

   “2026: 8.01 to 8.63 TWh, 23.9% to 25.2% of metered electricity (Decline, Frozen, Managed growth, AI hub)” · Scenario model (pipelines/scenarios.py, dataset 'scenarios', as of 10 Oct 2026), year 2026 across its four cases

   Test: CSO, Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2026: TWh and share of metered electricity. The CSO release date is expected (the 2025 edition came out on 7 Jul 2026); the CSO calendar does not list it yet.

   Where it will be scored

10. open made 3 Oct 2026 · prediction · due 31 Dec 2030

    Ireland will still have about 25 MW of offshore wind operating at the end of 2030 (the 2004 Arklow Bank turbines), against 1,350 MW in EirGrid's base case.

    “By 2030: 25 MW (index) vs 1,350 MW (EirGrid base).” · research/risk-register.md, offshore wind (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

    Test: Offshore wind capacity operating in Ireland at 31 Dec 2030 (EirGrid connected lists or SEAI).

11. open made 3 Oct 2026 · prediction · due 31 Dec 2030

    No offshore wind that data centres may buy (Oriel or Arklow Bank 2, the two projects outside State support) will generate before 2031.

    “first eligible output 2031 on this index's estimate” · research/risk-register.md, offshore wind (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

    Test: First power from Oriel or Arklow Bank 2 before 1 Jan 2031 makes this wrong.

12. open made 3 Oct 2026 · prediction · due 31 Dec 2031

    Ireland's share of EU data-centre electricity falls from about 7% to 4–5% by 2030.

    “Ireland's share will probably fall from about 7% to 4–5% as the EU triples capacity” · research/mission/strategy.md, 'What leader should mean' (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

    Test: Ireland's share of EU data-centre electricity use in 2030, from the first EU-wide source that reports it by country.

13. open made 3 Oct 2026 · prediction · due 31 Jul 2033

    Irish data centres will not add 3 GW of average load over 2025's 875 MW by 2032.

    “+3 GW by 2032 not credible” · research/mission/strategy.md, table of lens claims (power-and-grid section 0) (in git from 5 Oct 2026)

    Test: CSO data-centre metered consumption for 2032 below 33.9 TWh, the energy of a 3,875 MW average load (our arithmetic).

Source: StackPath repository (calls quoted with file and date) · outcome documents per row · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath

Small numbers: the ledger starts in October 2026, so the hit rate rests on a handful of resolved calls. Only calls written in the repository before the ledger's date are included; nothing is added after the fact. Mission targets are excluded: the documents label them targets, not forecasts.

5 calls fall due by the end of 2027

Checkable dates on Irish data-centre power, with what we said beforehand. We will score each here after the event. Reported

Source: europe, due 3 Dec 2026 · renewables, due 9 Dec 2026 · demand, due 7 Jul 2027 · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath

Official forecasts we will score against the outturn

Data-centre share of Irish electricity demand, as EirGrid and the Government forecast it. The 2025 outturn was 23.2% of metered electricity (CSO). None of these has reached its target year yet. Forecast

Source: EirGrid Generation Capacity Statements and AIRAA; CRU; DETE (pages per row in the policy dataset) · CSO, Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2025 · as of 2026-10-03 · Compiled by StackPath

These are other organisations' forecasts, kept apart from our own calls and our hit rate.

What counts as a call

• Included: statements about the world written in StackPath's research files before the ledger's date (11 Oct 2026) that a public document can settle: predictions, expectations, dates we committed to, and factual claims later tested. Each is quoted with its file, the date written in the file, and the date it first appears in version control.
• Excluded: the mission targets in the strategy files (for example "Managed growth", about 1.5 GW average by 2030), which those documents label as targets, not forecasts; the scenario model except where a stated range is scored; and internal project dates.
• Scoring: right, wrong or partly, with the document that settled it. A call is never edited after it is made; a changed view is a new call.
• Call types: prediction (our estimate of a future value), expectation (what we expected an event to contain), scheduled date (a date we relied on), model range (a range from our scenario model), claim (a factual statement later tested).

Our reading. Four resolved calls is too few to judge anyone's record; the value is in the open ones, which are public before their outcomes are known. Corrections to published figures are logged separately on corrections.