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As a nation, the UK holds queues in high regard. To those watching from abroad, the 10-mile line to view Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state seemed almost as quintessentially British as the sovereign herself. Yet it doesn’t always make sense to allocate scarce resources on a first-come-first-served basis. The rush to build data centres is an example.
Builders of facilities that power artificial intelligence — which Britain views as crucial to its economic growth — are stuck in a snaking queue to connect to the electricity grid. At the last count, the combined needs of those awaiting connections, many of them data centres, had more than tripled in a year, to 125 gigawatts. Wait times are between eight and 10 years, thinks consultancy Ember Energy. Some face more than a decade.
That’s disastrous for a sector engaged in a land-grab. Countries with shorter wait times, such as the Nordics and Italy, are expected to attract a greater share of hyperscalers’ money. The idea of data centres — and thus data — escaping to other countries also raises national concerns about security and resilience.
Britain can, though, speed things up, by stamping out gaming of the system. The ever-lengthening queue incentivises even those without firm projects to apply for a connection. The energy system operator has already started to address a similar issue on the supply queue — those lining up to provide new power generation to the grid — and is likely to impose requirements for queue entry and membership.
Even so, there will still be more real ones than the grid can accommodate. So another idea is to let the hyperscalers build their own “micro-grids”, with their own power generation and their own batteries, to be gradually subsumed into the national electricity network over time.
This is a smart workaround, and not just because it makes it more likely that data centre infrastructure will actually get built. Those generating their own power may be allowed to jump the queue and hook up to the national grid too, on the understanding that they will barely need to use it. But that two-way connection means that in times when they are producing more power than they need, they can feed some back into the wider pool.
A free-for-all does have drawbacks. Data centre builders may lean on gas-fired generation as a quick fix, at least initially, slowing the country’s progress towards decarbonisation. But the regulator could steer them towards renewables where that’s possible, and insist power sources are replaced with greener alternatives once available. The alternative is for the country’s AI ambitions to remain gridlocked. Uncomfortable as it may seem, some queue-barging is justified.
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