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The map of planned data centers shows how badly the UK needs to split its single pricing zone for electricity. There should be more incentive to build data cen
by wcoenen 10mo ago
The map of planned data centers shows how badly the UK needs to split its single pricing zone for electricity.
There should be more incentive to build data centers in the north, where there is plenty of renewable power but limited capacity to transport that power south.
Germany also has a single pricing zone and a similar north/south problem. It causes expensive curtailment and redispatch operations whenever the grid cannot physically transport the power from north to south the way it was traded.
- kristianc 10mo agoI'd imagine that a large part of the demand for data centres in the South is driven by the need for extreme low latency with the City of London and other financial centres like Frankfurt. It's all well to say there should be more incentive to build data centres in the North, but physics is physics.
- afavour 10mo agoIt could be that. Or it could just be that it’s logistically easier to keep your data centre close to your London office.
- chii 10mo agowhich is why the price in electricity isn't truly being reflected properly by the cost of distribution. If it costs less up north, then there would be incentive to move demand there (for data centers, which is more location agnostic). But if the price is the same up north, then the locality becomes a deciding factor.
- parineum 10mo agoThrow this in the bin of "fun consequences of price controls".
- baq 10mo agoOTOH a market without a regulator is literally a jungle
- pas 10mo agoa diverse productive ecosystem?
- baq 10mo agoA system in which your the stronger you are, the more rights you have
- pas 10mo agothat's not a jungle, rights come from a social contract and all the complicated social technology we usually operate to try to manifest said rights. in a jungle there are niches, and opportunities, and even though there are very strong participants, no one is invincible, especially outside their niche.
- baq 10mo agothe jungle is a place where the social contract is decided by the physically strongest players. the strongest player in the jungle is the man and the jungle only exists because he decided to not level it and turn it into a palm oil farm. in that sense you're right, I completely agree, no one is invincible there.
- sysguest 10mo agowell is the demand about inference or training?
- kristianc 10mo agoThe existing cluster of data centres in West London pre-dates the current AI boom, and the UK's "IT corridor" is generally based between London and Reading and Oxford and Cambridge. There's an emerging tech hub in the North West, but generally it's not there yet.
- novok 10mo agomaybe time to move the city of london's data centers too? meta doesn't have a huge data center in their corporate offices either.
- colechristensen 10mo agothe amount of DC space that is actually interested in those extremely low latencies is very small
- flowerthoughts 10mo agoIt seems fine that financial centers subsidise other regions. GP wasn't asking to ban building the data centers there, just make it more expensive. Because the delivery is more expensive.
- jillesvangurp 10mo agoLow latency is desirable for stock traders. Most of the data center growth isn't driven by that but by non latency critical workloads such as AI. The reason, data centers choose to be near London is because there is no pricing advantage to go up north. Even though energy is plentiful, readily accessible, and often curtailed when there's too much of it there. If there was a pricing difference, you'd see a lot more economic activity up north. Basically the physical advantage is there but the lack of economics cover it up and wipe out the advantage.
- vasco 10mo agoI have a much better proposal, we move the City of London (not London itself), to the North. The bankers would learn about scotland and everyone else would be better off.
- jjgreen 10mo agoPlease do this, please
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- andy_ppp 10mo agoDoesn’t the electricity move through the national grid fairly well? I don’t don’t disagree though, data centres in the north where there’s more space seems sensible.
- citrin_ru 10mo ago1. North-south links in the UK are already fully utilised. There are more in works and plans but not sure it’s enough to meet even existing demand. 2. Transmission losses are substantial.
- amoshebb 10mo ago"About 1.7% of the electricity transferred over the transmission network is lost" https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmenergy/386/38607.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmen...
- chickenbig 10mo agoTransmission in this sense does not include distribution losses (by the DNOs, at lower voltages). 8% in your link. The UK government is now touting datacentre sites with better access to the national grid (transmission network) to avoid the issues inherent in the distribution networks. E.g. Culham which had a grid connection to power the JET fusion experiments.
- pacifika 10mo agoThat plan was rejected later in July 2025, some energy firms say it could have scared off investment https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr3e78112po https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr3e78112po
- chickenbig 10mo ago> There should be more incentive to build data centers in the north There are clustering advantages for data centres. Lower inter-cluster latency being key. I do not think the UK market is large enough for two hubs, really.
- 6510 10mo agoNot sure how thing are today but I hear the weirdest story from a German farmer a decade or so ago: They make biogas then turn it into electricity and sell it to the grid for next to nothing. What they really wanted was to pump it into the gas net for domestic use but this wasn't allowed because it is of better quality than the "normal" Russian gas. Apparently someone really cares if some other customer got better gas for the same price(!?) He was rather pissed off about it. That and some remark that they didn't produce enough gas for the entire country. He said, we are suppose to make enough gas for the entire country but do so without selling it. They did have an association with plans to make biogas from hemp at scale. It just cant happen. edit: Apparently their law makers came to their senses since.