Too much in too few places?

From the paper “Beyond Planning Permission”

The full text of the relevant sections of the paper, with its own numbered notes. Note numbers match the paper.

14. Resilience, Backup and Systemic Risk

Modern society increasingly depends upon a complex ecosystem of digital infrastructure.

Industry practice commonly relies upon:

• geographic redundancy;
• multiple copies of data;
• disaster-recovery facilities;
• distributed architecture;
• availability zones.

These measures are designed to reduce single points of failure and improve continuity of service.

Important questions remain:

• How geographically dispersed should backups be?
• Should some information remain within specified jurisdictions?
• How should resilience be balanced against sovereignty considerations?
• Does increasing dependence upon a relatively small number of cloud providers create systemic risks?

These remain active areas of discussion rather than settled questions.^174,175

15. Regional Concentration and Proliferation Effects

London and Slough

London and the South East remain the principal concentration of data-centre infrastructure within Great Britain.

Official statistics indicate that Slough accounted for approximately 29% of British data-centre electricity consumption in 2024 and that data centres represented around 65% of local grid electricity use.¹⁷⁶

This concentration has prompted discussion concerning:

• electricity-network capacity;
• water resources;
• cumulative environmental impacts;
• infrastructure dependency.^177,178

There is little settled evidence yet on how quickly this concentration might translate into a visible supply problem, but comparable experience elsewhere offers some indication of the pace at which regional strain can develop, and of what other jurisdictions have found it useful to monitor.

In Ireland, data centres' share of national electricity demand rose from around 5% in 2015 to 22% by 2024, prompting a four-year moratorium on new data-centre grid connections that was lifted only in December 2025, and then on condition that new facilities provide their own back-up generation or storage capacity and source 80% of demand from renewable energy within six years.¹⁷⁹

In Northern Virginia's 'Data Center Alley', average data-centre water use in the Washington DC metropolitan area is projected to rise roughly fourfold between 2025 and 2035, with researchers there calling for mandatory monthly water-use reporting that does not yet exist, on the basis that current voluntary disclosure is inadequate to plan for the change.¹⁸⁰

The Netherlands and Singapore have each, at different times, imposed their own pauses on new hyperscale development - the former to allow local consultation to catch up with the pace of proposals, the latter over energy consumption and emissions - before both later reopened development under stricter efficiency and renewable-energy conditions.^181,182

Applying that experience to London and the South East, the material identified in the course of this appraisal does not permit a confident prediction of exactly when accumulated demand might translate into a visible shortage.

What can be said is that the region's water stress is already classified as serious by the Environment Agency, rather than merely anticipated, and that indicators used elsewhere to identify pressure - a grid operator or regulator publicly warning that connection requests exceed available capacity, as Ofgem has already done in relation to parts of Wales;¹⁸³ a water company setting out demand-side restrictions specific to data centres, as Thames Water has begun to explore; and a rising share of a local authority's total electricity or water demand attributable to data centres, as already measured for Slough above - are either present, or beginning to appear, in London and the South East now, rather than at some more distant point in the future.

Whether that combination is treated by government and regulators as an early warning meriting closer monitoring, in the way Ireland's rise from 5% to 22% grid share eventually was, is, in the authors' assessment, one of the more pressing open questions this appraisal identifies.

This assessment draws together evidence from several jurisdictions rather than resting on a single source, and readers should treat it as an informed extrapolation rather than an established finding.

South Wales

South Wales is emerging as one of the principal growth areas outside London.

Major proposals in Cardiff, Newport and Bridgend have created opportunities for investment and skills development while also raising questions regarding infrastructure demand, biodiversity, water resources and long-term community benefit.¹⁸⁴

These discussions are likely to become increasingly important as Welsh digital infrastructure continues to expand.¹⁸⁵

Some indication of the pace of change already exists.

Proposed data-centre developments across Wales, taken together with the South Wales AI Growth Zone, could require additional generating capacity of around 1.4 gigawatts - nearly ten times current operational data-centre capacity in Wales - and the AI Growth Zone alone has been estimated to require some 13% of Wales's total electricity generating capacity by the early 2030s.

Ofgem has itself warned that the current electricity network cannot accommodate all proposed data-centre connections being sought.¹⁸⁶

As with London and Slough, this appraisal has not identified a published, Wales-specific equivalent of the Environment Agency's water-stress classifications, or of Thames Water's demand projections, that would allow the water dimension of this growth to be assessed with the same degree of evidence; that absence of comparable data is itself one of the gaps this appraisal identifies.

Notes from the paper

1. 174. House of Commons Library, Data Centres: Planning Policy, Sustainability and Resilience, Research Briefing CBP-10315 (27 May 2026). https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10315/
2. 175. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, Risks and Opportunities to the Sustainability of Data Centres in the UK (Inquiry, 2026). https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9651/risks-and-opportunities-to-the-sustainability-of-data-centres-in-the-uk/
3. 176. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Data Centre Electricity Consumption in Great Britain, 2020–2024 (Official Statistics in Development, June 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a3e9f25da47783d87723bf2/Data_centre_electricity_consumption_in_Great_Britain__2020_to_2024.pdf
4. 177. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Data Centre Electricity Consumption in Great Britain, 2020–2024 (Official Statistics in Development, June 2026). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a3e9f25da47783d87723bf2/Data_centre_electricity_consumption_in_Great_Britain__2020_to_2024.pdf
5. 178. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, Risks and Opportunities to the Sustainability of Data Centres in the UK (Inquiry, 2026). https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9651/risks-and-opportunities-to-the-sustainability-of-data-centres-in-the-uk/
6. 179. Pinsent Masons, 'New Irish Data Centres Must Generate Power Back into National Grid, Rules Regulator', reporting the Commission for Regulation of Utilities' final policy decision of December 2025. https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/irish-data-centres-power-national-grid-regulator
7. 180. Frontier Group, 'Does Virginia Have Enough Water to Quench Thirsty Data Centers?' (2026). https://frontiergroup.org/articles/does-virginia-have-enough-water-to-quench-thirsty-data-centers/
8. 181. Data Center Dynamics, 'The Netherlands' Hollands Kroon Wants to Pause Hyperscale Data Center Developments' (30 June 2022). https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/the-netherlands-hollands-kroon-wants-to-pause-hyperscale-developments/
9. 182. Lexology, 'Building Green Data Centres - Singapore Lifts Moratorium on New Data Centres, Introduces Environmental Sustainability Standards', summarising Singapore's 2019-2022 moratorium and its March 2022 conditions for new capacity. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=254ea4fc-98b1-465f-9904-2f4c4c3496fc
10. 183. Fuse Energy, analysis of electricity demand from proposed Welsh data centres and the South Wales AI Growth Zone, citing Ofgem's warning that the current network cannot accommodate all proposed data-centre grid connections (2026). https://www.fuseenergy.com/news/welsh-data-centre
11. 184. Senedd Research, Data Centres in Wales: How Will Wales Manage a Rapidly Growing Industry? (July 2026). https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/data-centres-in-wales-how-will-wales-manage-a-rapidly-growing-industry/
12. 185. Senedd Research, Data Centres in Wales: How Will Wales Manage a Rapidly Growing Industry? (July 2026). https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/data-centres-in-wales-how-will-wales-manage-a-rapidly-growing-industry/
13. 186. Fuse Energy, analysis of electricity demand from proposed Welsh data centres and the South Wales AI Growth Zone, citing Ofgem's warning that the current network cannot accommodate all proposed data-centre grid connections (2026). https://www.fuseenergy.com/news/welsh-data-centre