Labour’s plans fora data centre building blitzare being put at risk by a power supply crunch at Britain’s biggest hub.
The electricity grid in the West London cluster, home to the biggest collection of data centres outside of the US, is at full capacity and unable to connect any more sites.
The tech industry now faces a wait of several years until new capacity can be added in the area, with the National Grid still waiting for planning permission to build a new electricity substation.
Fourteen data centre projects are on hold until the extra capacity can be added, the operator has said.
The Government has maderelaxing planning rulesfor data centres a key part of its plans to boost growth and investment as well as embracing technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Last week, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, cheered an £8bn commitment from Amazon’s cloud computing arm to invest in Britain.
The Government also said it would categorise data centres as critical national infrastructure, meaning they would receive the same protections as energy and water systems.
Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary, has also reopened two rejected data centre planning applications.
However, data centres have raised concerns over their impact on the grid, especially in dense urban areas.
