TL;DR
Four planned UK data centres are considering gas-fired power while they wait for grid connections, the BBC’s File on 4 reported on 3 November. Running flat out, the BBC calculates they would need 1.3 gigawatts and could emit roughly 4.1 million tonnes of carbon a year, more than Manchester, Liverpool and Southampton combined. The government says any such generation would be tightly controlled.
The report tests a detail of October’s Budget. Chancellor John Healey’s data centre covenant offers priority grid access in return for local commitments, but he also said developers could generate their own power where no connection is available.
The four sites
The projects differ widely in size. Acre Slough, west of London, could use gas engines capped at 49.5 megawatts and expects to wait at least 10 years for the grid. Wapsey’s Wood, beside the M40 in Buckinghamshire, proposes a 200-megawatt gas station until capacity arrives, not currently expected before 2040. In Cardiff, a developer wants a temporary energy centre with turbines of up to 49.9 megawatts for as long as five years, which Curtis Hall calls a “worst-case scenario”.
The largest is Quest Park in Bedfordshire, at a planned 1 gigawatt. Director David Kohler told the BBC the mix was still a “work in progress”, that renewables had to be “feasible”, and that the company was considering technologies that do not burn gas. So the headline emissions figure is a ceiling: it assumes continuous full running, and at least one developer has not committed to gas. All four say they intend to join the national grid eventually.
Why developers are looking at it
The queue explains the interest. Ofgem says developers want connections totalling 72 gigawatts, against peak national demand of 45 gigawatts last year. The regulator’s Nathan McWhinnie said: “In a lot of places, the grid is at capacity.”
Environmental Audit Committee chair Toby Perkins said a large rise in natural gas use “can’t be the future”. The government replied that behind-the-meter generation would be time-limited and reserved for exceptionally strategic projects, and that pausing development would push jobs and data overseas.
Looking Forward
The government’s limits are the point to test, in our view. The BBC report quotes no definition of “tightly controlled”, and two of these plans describe stopgaps that could last a decade or more because the grid will not arrive sooner. Local objections are already forming: Buckinghamshire councillor Ed Gemmell said it “would be a disaster for us environmentally”. Planning decisions on these sites will show whether a temporary exception stays temporary, and how much weight net zero carries when set against AI capacity.