UK parliament's cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has established a new inquiry on the environmental impacts of data centres in the UK, including on how they may affect the country's net zero targets.
The committee will look at the "risks and opportunities to the sustainability of data centres in the UK", including how much energy and water data centres are likely to use and whether planning processes will take into account the environmental impact. It has called for evidence on several points, including around "competition for resources and decarbonisation" and the role renewable energy could play to cut emissions from data centres. The committee also raises the possibility of data centres helping to "power and heat local communities and amenities".
The EAC will also examine whether the independent advisory Climate Change Committee has taken into account the potential impact of data centres, particularly in its advice on the seventh carbon budget. Carbon budgets are a cap on emissions over a certain period and are legally binding in the UK. The UK's seventh carbon budget covers the years 2038-42.
UK energy minister Ed Miliband said that his department's modelling, including for the seventh carbon budget, "accounts for potential emissions from data centres through our projection of overall electricity demand growth", in a letter to the EAC. But he added that "future demand from data centres, and interaction with wider energy system demands, remains inherently uncertain" and said that modelling will test "a range of trajectories".
Data centres are "regarded by ministers as being central to UK economic growth", the EAC said. The committee noted that the government designated data centres as critical national infrastructure in September 2024, which it said offers "more legal protections". The UK's national energy system operator expects data centres' electricity consumption to quadruple by 2030.
"Will data centres power the UK's economic growth? Perhaps. But what kind of implications will they have for energy and the environment? How will they impact the already tortuous queues for grid connections and the government's plans to bring down energy bills?", EAC chair Toby Perkins said.
