Havering Friends of the Earth

Unsustainable data centres

by Ian Pirie; first published 1-May-2026

Fools rush in where the wise man fears to tread - TheDigitalArtist via Pixabay

We have previously written about the proposed data centre in North Ockendon, which we oppose, but here I want to express a concern that there is, globally, a mad rush to build data centres, regardless of any harmful impacts they may bring.

The main worry concerns the demand for electricity. There are already over 500 data centres in the UK. "About 140 data centres are in the queue to be connected to Britain's power grid, and their combined energy requirements are estimated to be more than the current peak electricity use for the entire country" [The Register, Feb 2026]. Ireland has already put a freeze on any new data centres because of the strain on the country's electricity provider.

For the consumer, the extreme demands on the grid are likely to increase prices, as experienced in other countries, and even lead to blackouts because data centres will get first priority.

The second major concern is water demand. Many data centres use water for cooling the computers. The electrical installation service EESI says large data centres can consume up to 5 million gallons a day, equivalent to the water used by a town of up to 50,000 people. Anglian Water's strong objection stopped plans for a data centre in North Lincolnshire, and in Slough, home to Europe's largest cluster of data centres, it is Thames Water, already in severe financial difficulties, which will need to meet the demand... Will the consumer or the data centre come first?

A third concern is over the misuse of the idea of "sustainability". To give the impression that a data centre will be "green", it is often claimed that it is sustainable. Yet technology advances very rapidly, and the currently used chips will be out of date within a few years. We will then be left with a huge amount of electronic waste! This is not "sustainability", it's greenwashing!

Finally, and alarmingly, there is increasing secrecy: Microsoft and other US tech companies have recently successfully lobbied the EU to pass laws that hide the environmental toll – from carbon emissions – and the energy footprint of their data centres [The Guardian and Investigate Europe].

With all this, why are we letting the world's richest corporations push us into a future which we have not asked for and may not wish for?