Data Centres: Energy and Water Consumption

Earl Russell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The proposal process for AI growth zones, which is where the big data centres will be placed, started in early February and ended at the end of February. Over 50 proposals have come forward, each of which needs to deal specifically with water in relation to the local environment and local plans, and to plan that with the water company.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, demand is increasing faster than our policies for AI energy usage. AI is desperately power hungry, just at the pinch point where we are desperately trying to reach clean power by 2035 and our electricity demand is set to more than double by 2050. I call on the Government urgently to create an AI energy efficiency strategy, with the target of ensuring that AI usage and savings are better than carbon neutral before 2030.

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The AI Energy Council is set up as a joint council between the Secretary of States for DESNZ and for DSIT. The noble Earl is right that, at the moment, around 2.5% of current total energy consumption is in data centres. The total amount of electricity use is due to go up from seven to 62 terawatt hours by 2050. In relation to the overall increase in requirement for electric vehicles and others, that is still about 10% of the total. However, it is a really important issue that the energy council is looking at and it leads to questions about the supply, and work on small module reactors may be part of the solution.