Four planned large-scale data centres in Britain are considering burning gas on site to power their operations while they wait for a connection to the electricity grid, according to an investigation by BBC File on 4 published on 3 November. The findings land days after the government said strategic data centres could, in limited cases, generate their own power until the grid catches up.
What the investigation found
The BBC identified four projects at different stages of planning that include, or are weighing, gas-fired generation as an interim or fallback power source. Three of the developers expect, or are preparing for, long waits for grid capacity, in some cases a decade or more.
- Acre Slough, west of London: gas engines of up to 49.5MW are proposed while the developer waits for a National Grid connection it expects could take at least ten years.
- Wapsey’s Wood, Buckinghamshire: a 200MW gas power station beside the M40 could run until sufficient grid capacity arrives, which is not currently expected before 2040.
- Cardiff: a developer is seeking permission for a temporary energy centre with turbines of up to 49.9MW, operating for up to five years if its grid connection is delayed. The developer described it as a worst-case scenario.
- Quest Park, Bedfordshire: a proposed site with a 1GW power load, whose director said the energy mix remains a work in progress and that options not relying on gas combustion are being studied.
The numbers behind the queue
By the BBC’s calculation, the four sites would together need around 1.3GW and could emit roughly 4.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year if run continuously at full output. That is a ceiling rather than a forecast, since actual running hours would depend on how long each site relies on gas and how heavily it is loaded.
The pressure comes from the grid queue. Ofgem told the BBC that data centre developers are seeking connections totalling 72GW, compared with peak national electricity demand of about 45GW last year. An Ofgem official summed up the problem bluntly: “In a lot of places, the grid is at capacity.”
Policy context: the Data Centre Covenant
The government’s Data Centre Covenant, published alongside the Budget in late October, offers priority grid access to projects it designates as strategic. It also commits ministers to develop a “tightly controlled framework to permit on site generation” until a grid connection is secured, limited to exceptionally strategic projects where other measures cannot deliver capacity in time. The covenant also sets a design power usage effectiveness target of 1.3 or better and asks operators to agree local benefit plans with host communities.
The government told the BBC that connecting data centres to the grid remains the priority and that any on-site generation would be time-limited. Critics quoted in the investigation, including the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee and a Buckinghamshire councillor, warned that a significant expansion of gas use would conflict with the UK’s 2050 net zero target. How “temporary” is defined, and who qualifies as strategic, has not yet been set out.
Why it matters for modular and edge in Europe
Bridging power is increasingly delivered in modular form: containerised gas engines, packaged turbines and battery systems that can be shipped, installed and later removed. Rules on how long such kit may run, and under what emissions conditions, will shape demand for these products in the UK and could influence regulators elsewhere in Europe facing similar queues.
The findings also strengthen the case for smaller, distributed deployments. Edge and modular facilities in the low single-digit megawatt range can often connect at distribution level, or reuse existing capacity at industrial and telecoms sites, rather than joining the transmission queue alongside gigawatt campuses. If on-site gas becomes harder to justify politically, projects that can be phased to match available grid capacity may gain an advantage.
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