Data Centres: Energy Demand

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I have lots of reasons to agree with my noble friend about particular Administrations and how they might be replaced. As far as the future of AI nuclear is concerned, it is certainly the case that new nuclear can sit very well alongside, for example, AI growth zones. One example of that is the Wylfa area, where the contract for a new SMR has just been signed, which will also be an AI growth zone where a number of data centres can establish themselves and directly use the power coming from that new SMR on that site.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, given that the environmental footprint is rightly central to the Government’s net zero policy, what is their reason for not opening the North Sea to a new licence round tied to long-term take-or-pay contracts to power new data centres, for example, when the average carbon intensity of the North Sea is 24 kilograms per barrel of oil, Jackdaw is 8 and imported LNG from the United States is 85 kilograms of carbon intensity? What is the Government’s rationale for not developing our own reserves rather than importing LNG, at the expense of energy security, with an environmental impact four times more polluting than developing our reserves in the North Sea?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord is back on his fairly standard topic. As far as AI is concerned, we ought to bear in mind that clean power already represents 73.7% of GB electricity generation and we are targeting clean power providing at least 95% of that power by 2030 or so. Importing a lot more gas to deal with the introduction of AI does not necessarily follow, because it is really a question of using that clean power in the most optimised way possible to make sure that AI is supported, so his thesis does not quite stack up.