Key facts
- Hounslow Council approved plans for a new data centre near Heathrow Airport.
- The data centre will require an 80MVA high-capacity electricity connection.
- Ofgem warned that speculative data centre projects are straining the electricity grid and delaying viable investments.
- Ofgem is proposing new rules, including commitment fees, to address the issue.
- London's data centre development is requesting ten times the electricity capacity of existing facilities.
Hounslow Council has approved plans for a new data centre on a 12.2-acre site at the Haslemere Heathrow Estate, which will require a substantial 80MVA electricity connection, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. The decision comes amid a surge in data centre development proposals around London, driven by demand for AI technologies, placing significant pressure on the UK's electricity grid.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, has expressed concern that speculative data centre projects are occupying valuable grid capacity, potentially delaying more viable investments. An Ofgem spokesperson stated that the connections queue must serve consumers and ready investors, and that speculative schemes create uncertainty for network planning. The regulator is consulting on new measures, including a commitment fee and stricter requirements for data centre developers to secure their place in the grid queue, aiming to free up capacity and expedite connections for projects that are commercially serious.
The scale of proposed data centre development is testing London's infrastructure, with the Greater London Authority reporting that requests for electricity capacity already exceed current data centre usage by tenfold. As of November last year, London had 99 operational data centres and another 26 in the planning pipeline, accounting for approximately 80% of the UK's data centre capacity. While the Heathrow development is expected to draw power from outside Hounslow borough, concerns remain about the high water and energy intensity of such facilities. Affinity Water has noted that some data centres are requesting millions of litres of water daily, equivalent to the peak demand of thousands of homes. The GLA had previously flagged potential non-compliance with the London Plan regarding transport and resource intensity for similar developments.
Hounslow Council stated that its planning committee considered the project's demands and that mitigation strategies would be secured through the planning process, with utility matters addressed by relevant bodies. The applicant for the Heathrow scheme is Brixton (Heathrow Estate) Ltd. This approval follows similar recent decisions in west London, including Ealing Council's approval of a large data centre in Southall. Both the Hounslow and Ealing projects require further referral to the Mayor of London before they can proceed.