Datacentre developers face calls to disclose effect on UK’s net emissions | AI (artificial intelligence)
Publish Date: 2026-03-01 11:00:00
Source Domain: www.theguardian.com
Datacentre developers are facing pressure to reveal whether their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns the sites could double national electricity demand.
Campaign groups have written to the UK technology secretary, Liz Kendall, warning that the energy required by new AI infrastructure poses a “serious threat to efforts to decarbonise the electricity grid”.
Developers should demonstrate that their projects will not cause an increase in the UK’s overall CO2 emissions or local water scarcity, as part of a forthcoming national policy statement (NPS) on datacentres, the letter says.
“Without these commitments, such vast electricity use will inevitably generate vast climate emissions,” the campaigners write.
The letter is signed by Foxglove, a group that campaigns against big tech dominance, and five other non-governmental organisations including the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth.
This week, MPs on the environmental audit committee announced an inquiry into the environmental sustainability of datacentres and published a letter from the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, in which he said future energy demand from datacentres “remains inherently uncertain”. The UK is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, meaning total greenhouse gas emissions would be equal to the emissions the UK removes from the atmosphere.
Ofgem, the energy regulator for Great Britain, recently published a calculation that the amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects would exceed the current peak of national electricity consumption. Ofgem said in a consultation this month that about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by the use of artificial intelligence, could require 50GW of electricity – 5GW more than Great Britain’s current peak demand.
Datacentres planned for Elsham in Lincolnshire and Cambois in Northumberland will each have an electricity demand of 1GW, equivalent to the output of a nuclear…
