New datacentres risk doubling Great Britain’s electricity use, regulator says

Servers at a datacentre in London. The rapid rise in energy consumption could make it more difficult for the UK to meet its clean energy target. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog.

Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity – 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand.