TL;DR
Evolution Power Limited has opened consultation on Longmarsh Green Energy, a project near King’s Lynn reported by the BBC on 15 October: a data centre drawing up to 1GW of power, a solar farm generating up to 1.3GW with battery storage, and a claimed £25bn of investment across about 4,695 acres of Norfolk. The developer expects to file a planning application next April, and the scheme’s size means ministers rather than the borough council will decide it. It joins a run of large AI data-centre proposals in Norfolk and beyond that have met local resistance.
The BBC reports that details are so far limited, but that the solar element alone would out-generate any other solar farm currently planned in the UK. For comparison, the High Grove scheme, also in rural Norfolk and itself contested, is designed for up to 720MW, enough for about 363,000 homes, or a little over half the Longmarsh figure.
What is proposed
EPL wants two sites: one near Tilney St Lawrence, south of the A47, the other close to Fincham and Barton Bendish. Both would feed into the Walpole substation that already exists, and the company is targeting operation by 2031. It says construction would create thousands of jobs and the operating sites more than 500 direct roles.
The data centre would use a closed-loop cooling system, recirculating liquid rather than drawing on mains water, a design choice that speaks to one of the objections such schemes now routinely face. A spokesperson called the project “critical for future UK economic growth” and said it would deliver “secure renewable energy and data centre capacity”. The community consultation runs until 26 November.
Because of its scale the project will be treated as nationally significant infrastructure (NSIP), so the final decision sits with central government. High Grove has the same status.
Local reaction
James Wild, the Conservative MP for North West Norfolk, said the plan, taken with High Grove and a big wind farm proposed nearby, “could represent further large scale industrialisation of the landscape”. The borough council’s independent leader, Alistair Beales, said it would “do our job locally and reflect residents’ concerns”.
The pattern is familiar. In the past week we have covered noise and wildlife objections to a data centre at Keswick near Norwich and a protest against a site on the Menai Strait. The BBC notes that the government regards data centres as critical to “nearly all economic activity and public services”.
Looking forward
Pairing a gigawatt-scale data centre with its own solar generation and storage answers the grid-capacity question that stalls many UK proposals, and in our view that pairing, rather than the headline £25bn, is what makes Longmarsh worth watching. The test will be whether a self-supplied site can clear the NSIP process faster than schemes that depend on grid connections, and whether a “closed loop” cooling claim survives scrutiny at examination.