{"id":25697,"date":"2026-07-27T09:16:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/?p=25697"},"modified":"2026-07-27T09:16:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:16:51","slug":"data-tsentry-brytaniyi-cherhy-elektryka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/science-tech\/data-tsentry-brytaniyi-cherhy-elektryka\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain is putting the brakes on data centres due to electricity prices and queues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"news-lead\">The UK risks losing some of its investment in data centres due to industrial electricity prices that are almost four times higher than in the US, strict planning regulations and delays in connecting to the grid. The government aims to increase capacity from 2 GW to at least 6 GW by 2030, but the backlog of applications has already reached 125 GW.<\/p>\n<div class=\"news-summary-box\">\n<p><strong>Briefly about the main points<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Industrial electricity in the UK is almost four times more expensive than in the US.<\/li>\n<li>Construction of the data centre could take 18 months, whilst the connection process could take up to eight years.<\/li>\n<li>The queue of connection applications has grown from 41 to 125 GW.<\/li>\n<li>The government is establishing zones where data centres have priority access to the network.<\/li>\n<li>On-premises servers are important for e-commerce and sensitive data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2>There is demand, but there is a shortage of capacity<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/science-tech\/spacex-kardashev-milion-suputnikiv-cyvilizaciya-ii-typu\/\">Data centres<\/a> They have long since moved beyond the confines of a narrow segment of the financial market. They provide streaming, video games, chatbots and artificial intelligence tools. In London\u2019s eastern docklands, such facilities are located near Canary Wharf, where extremely low data latency is an advantage for trading.<\/p>\n<p>According to <strong>Juliana Hennessy<\/strong> With Telehouse, the company could immediately fill six more new sites with clients. At the same time, on a per capita basis, the UK has only a third of the data centre capacity of the US. Whilst the UK\u2019s target for 2030 is at least 6 GW, compared with the current 2 GW, US capacity could rise from 29 GW to over 90 GW.<\/p>\n<h2>The network connection has become the main bottleneck<\/h2>\n<p>The high cost of electricity makes it difficult to operate these facilities, whilst their construction is hampered by planning regulations and long waiting lists for connection. <strong>Hugh Milward<\/strong> A Microsoft spokesperson says that it could take 18 months to build a data centre, whilst securing a network connection could take eight years.<\/p>\n<p>According to estimates by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the lifetime cost of a 100 MW data centre in the UK is 19% lower than in the US. The main factor cited is the time taken to connect to the electricity grid: on average, this is ten months longer than in the US.<\/p>\n<p>The \u00abfirst come, first served\u00bb queueing system encouraged a flood of speculative applications even before the projects were ready. Between November 2024 and June 2025, the total capacity in the queue tripled \u2013 from 41 to 125 GW.<\/p>\n<h2>The government has promised to review the waiting list<\/h2>\n<p>The authorities are reforming the queueing mechanism to weed out frivolous applications, and have also established AI \u00abgrowth zones\u00bb across the country. Within these zones, data centres are to be given priority access to the network. However, some of the changes are still at the consultation stage, and Microsoft is calling for the process to be speeded up.<\/p>\n<p>Among the options being discussed by the reformers is the possibility for data centres to pay to move up the queue. According to the report, the facilities themselves are sufficiently profitable once operational, so there is no need for state subsidies. Access to the electricity grid remains the key challenge.<\/p>\n<h2>Not all computing needs to be carried out within the country<\/h2>\n<p>Head of the Sovereign AI government unit <strong>James Wise<\/strong> warns that a greater number of data centres does not, in itself, guarantee the emergence of more AI companies. The UK can build on its strong position in research and the services sector, where profitable applications of artificial intelligence can be developed.<\/p>\n<p>The country could potentially host part of its computing needs in Finland or other countries with cheaper electricity and more affordable land. At the same time, complete dependence on foreign infrastructure poses risks: critical delays could occur in financial transactions, whilst national security data or confidential medical information may in future need to be stored on national territory.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Telehouse South is capable of exchanging data with traders in Canary Wharf in less than a millisecond; using a server in New York takes more than 70 times as long. This suggests that, whilst local infrastructure is not essential for all digital services, for some of them it cannot easily be replaced by remote sites.<\/p>\n<h2>British society has not yet made up its mind on the issue<\/h2>\n<p>Unlike in the US, where, according to a Gallup poll, 71% of respondents oppose the construction of data centres near their communities due to concerns about water and energy, awareness of such facilities is significantly lower in the UK. According to Public First, around seven in ten Britons know little or nothing about them.<\/p>\n<p>For the government, this could provide an opportunity to set out the economic case for new sites. At the same time, success will depend primarily on the ability to quickly clear network bottlenecks and speed up the connection of data centres to the electricity grid.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK needs local data centres for trading, sensitive data and AI, but their expansion is being held back by the electricity grid.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":207433355,"featured_media":25696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_description":"\u041b\u043e\u043a\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u0456 \u0434\u0430\u0442\u0430-\u0446\u0435\u043d\u0442\u0440\u0438 \u043f\u043e\u0442\u0440\u0456\u0431\u043d\u0456 \u0411\u0440\u0438\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0456\u0457 \u0434\u043b\u044f \u0442\u0440\u0435\u0439\u0434\u0438\u043d\u0433\u0443, \u0447\u0443\u0442\u043b\u0438\u0432\u0438\u0445 \u0434\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0445 \u0456 \u0428\u0406, \u0430\u043b\u0435 \u0457\u0445\u043d\u0454 \u0440\u043e\u0437\u0448\u0438\u0440\u0435\u043d\u043d\u044f \u0431\u043b\u043e\u043a\u0443\u0454 \u0435\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0442\u0440\u043e\u043c\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0436\u0430.","rank_math_title":"\u0427\u043e\u043c\u0443 \u0434\u0430\u0442\u0430-\u0446\u0435\u043d\u0442\u0440\u0438 \u0411\u0440\u0438\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0456\u0457 \u0433\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043c\u0443\u044e\u0442\u044c \u0447\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437 \u0435\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0442\u0440\u043e\u043c\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0436\u0443","rank_math_focus_keyword":"\u0434\u0430\u0442\u0430-\u0446\u0435\u043d\u0442\u0440\u0438","td_subtitle":"","subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[805620],"tags":[806764],"class_list":["post-25697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science-tech","tag-806764"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207433355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25698,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25697\/revisions\/25698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}