The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) was made aware three weeks ago that the ESB had undercharged Meta for its power usage at its Clonee facility over an 18-month period, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Karen Trant, CRU Director of Customer Policy and Protection, said that "there was an issue with the transformers on the site" which powers the data centre in Co Meath.
She told the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action that ESB Networks (ESB-N) had flagged the issue "around three weeks ago".
The transformers "had been recording an under usage of consumption. They're investigating that", Ms Trant said, adding that a report would be completed by ESB-N "in the matter of another week or two".
"Our concern is that we would want to know that it is not systemic. That it is isolated to that particular site," she said.
Ms Trant was responding to Jennifer Whitmore, Social Democrats TD, who had noted media reports that, due to an error in a sub-station, the Meta data centre in Clonee had been given free electricity "for an 18 month period".
Ms Trant rejected the suggestion that no electricity usage by Meta had been recorded.
"It recorded an under usage. I think it's somewhere in the region of 7%, that's what I've been told", she said.
Ms Trant said that ESB-N "are confident that it is not a systemic issue. However, they can't guarantee that it hasn't happened at another site".
Deputy Whitmore said that "it just seems incredible" that Meta, which uses the electricity of "150,000 homes", was allowed to underpay, just after the public learned that domestic users were overcharged to the tune of €100 million over the course of a decade.
She asked if the CRU has concerns at "these major technical issues which seem to be following" the ESB around, and said that the energy provider is "not on top of the charging mechanisms that they have in place".
Jim Gannon, CRU Chairperson, conceded that it was "a very fair question".
"We are awaiting an incident report from ESB Networks" to establish if it is "a systemic issue", he said.
The investigation will examine if "there are other transformers that may be on the system with this risk profile", he added.
