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Data Centres: Planning

Asked by Nick TimothyConservativeDepartment for Energy Security and Net ZeroTabled Answered 5 February 2025UIN 26896

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of his policies on the construction of off-grid infrastructure for new data centres, including on (a) gas-fired power plants, (b) nuclear power plants, (c) small modular reactors, and (d) renewables.

Answered by Michael Shanks

Data centres are normally connected to the transmission and distribution grid rather than off-grid connection as this gives them resilience to planned and forced outages of an individual power source. Consequently, my Department has not made any assessment of off-grid infrastructure requirements.

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