London’s power system is struggling to build more data centers, hindering potential investment and undermining the UK’s ambitions in technology areas such as AI, a company has warned the UK energy regulator. .
Peter Betts, Engineering Director at Virtus Data Centers Ltd., said: “The combination of immediate power shortages and future power delays is hindering business growth in the South East of England from the addition of new sites.” I’m here. It “prevents the region from benefiting from future technological advances in areas such as artificial intelligence that the UK hopes to become a center of global excellence.”
In a letter sent to regulators by industry group TechUK, Betts said power shortages in south-east England have stalled around £500m ($636m) of investment in new data center facilities. Stated.
Server farms are one of many industries in the UK that are lagging behind due to poor access to electricity. Much of the new generation comes from offshore wind farms off the coast of Scotland, making it difficult to go south.
The National Grid and the government’s Gas and Power Markets Authority have blamed each other for delays in installing new grids, which have also disrupted the supply of housing, and some projects have There is a line for more than 10 years. Earlier this month, the grid operator said it was ready to launch sluggish planned generation capacity from the queue to make room for other projects.
“If the UK wants to remain a major player in AI and other emerging technologies, it needs the infrastructure to support these innovations,” said Neil Roth, Associate Director of Policy at TechUK. “As access to electricity is slow and expensive, it is putting this at risk and halting the construction of infrastructure ranging from data centers to telecommunications networks to semiconductor manufacturing.”
A spokeswoman for Ofgem said the connection delays were a “major impediment” to the construction of new data centers and other power-hungry projects that needed “immediate” policy reform. .
“We know that some of our connectivity customers are frustrated,” Julian Leslie, the grid operator’s network chief, said earlier this year. “We are determined to meet the challenges with our current process, which is not designed to manage the sheer volume of applications we are currently receiving.”
