AI rush deemed “incompatible” with Clean Power Plan

Author: Simon Rowley

A forecast suggests that the UK data centre boom is at odds with the UK’s clean power commitments, with the sector already overwhelming the electricity system and forcing an unavoidable reliance on gas. This is the view put forward by Simon Gallagher, Managing Director at UK Networks Services, speaking at Montel’s UK Energy Day event earlier today (13 November).

Simon said that only firm capacity be counted on in the context of powering data centres, as adverse weather conditions would reduce the availability of wind and solar during periods of low wind and sunlight.

When asked what could realistically power tens of gigawatts worth of near constant data centre load, Simon said his “controversial opinion” was that this demand “is going to have to be met by gas.”

“It’s the only technology we have that can do this on a firm basis. We don’t have storage,” Simon added. This led him to conclude that the sector’s growth was simply not compatible with the UK government’s Clean Power 2030 plans, under which 95% of energy must come from low-carbon sources by the turn of the decade.

Physical limitations

This comes amid an explosion in grid connection requests, jumping from around 17 GW to 97 GW over the summer, pushing the total capacity waiting for connections to the UK grid up to 125 GW.

Simon continued, “About 80% of that is hyperscale data centres. It’s all AI. The impact on our grid is very real – and it just happened.” The UK was “never, ever” going to build the required transmission capacity in time, Simon added, with a new connection taking “at least five years.”

He also outlined how the infrastructure available is not where data centres want to be, adding that such facilities seek sizeable connections “at transmission voltage, in urban areas near fibre.” This would typically site them away from significant power generation zones, which could help to alleviate network constraints and reduce balancing costs.

Earlier today, Dhara Vyas, CEO of trade group Energy UK, told the same event that the UK’s clean energy expansion was being slowed by planning rules and grid connection queues that were “actively deterring investors”.

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