UK power watchdog Ofgem has growled at the way datacentres are using power, with would-be server barns asking for more juice than Britain even draws at peak.
The regulator says about 140 proposed AI-linked projects could require 50 gigawatts, around 5GW more than current peak electricity demand.
The warning sits in an Ofgem consultation on new grid connections after a “surge in demand” for applications between November 2024 and June last year, with datacentres piling in. Ofgem said this has blown past even the most ambitious forecasts.
While the AI crowd grabs places in the queue, new renewable projects are not getting connected as quickly as they are being built, which is awkward if ministers want clean energy targets met by the end of the decade. Ofgem said the work needed to connect the data centre stampede could delay other schemes “critical for decarbonisation and economic growth”.
Datacentres are the guts of chatbots and image generators, training and running systems like ChatGPT and Gemini, so the demand is not exactly a surprise. The problem is that a rapid rise in power use could make the UK’s aim of a near carbon-free electricity system by 2030 even harder, as the country frets about high power bills.
The Guardian previously reported that a huge data centre planned for Elsham in Lincolnshire could produce more greenhouse gas emissions than five international airports. Some tech bosses and climate experts say AI might help grids run smarter or accelerate the adoption of zero-carbon tech, but near-term fears are that more data centres mean more fossil fuel burning to keep the lights on.
Ofgem said flimsy applications for grid access can block progress for more serious data centre bids, including those tied to the government’s AI growth zones. Those zones were announced last year with promises of smoother planning and help with energy access, which now reads like a leaflet handed out in a traffic jam.
To stop the queue turning into a graveyard of fantasy projects, Ofgem has proposed tougher financial tests for data centre developers before they join the line. It is weighing deposits or non-refundable fees for access to connections, and it is exploring whether data centre builders should pay for and build their own grid access to speed things up and protect consumers.
