UK's most polluting power plant could power the country's largest AI datacentre

The owner of Drax, a North Yorkshire power station and the UK's single largest carbon dioxide emitter, has struck a deal with infrastructure investor Brookfield and AI infrastructure platform Radiant. The London-listed company plans to build the country's largest AI datacentre, with an eventual capacity above 1 gigawatt. Operations could start in early 2028, and Drax says the project could attract more than £20bn ($26.8bn) in investment.

Project phases

In the first phase Drax will supply land and access to the national grid through connections already on the site. The first stage would be operational in the first quarter of 2028 with up to 100MW of compute capacity. The company hopes to power the datacentre directly by the early 2030s, which requires regulatory approvals it aims to secure before 2031.

Background: subsidies and emissions

Drax is the UK's largest power plant and produces almost 5% of the country's electricity by burning woody biomass pellets. Analysts consider it the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide. The government does not count these emissions, because Drax argues they are absorbed by growing trees that supply the waste wood for the pellets. After growing concerns over the company's sustainability claims, the government promised Drax would play a much more limited role in future. From 2027 to 2031 it will receive only half of its current subsidies of £2m a day.

Chief executive Will Gardiner said the project would help secure the site's long-term future and protect hundreds of jobs, while supporting the north's reindustrialisation. Equity analysts welcomed the news, and the company's market value rose almost 9% on the London Stock Exchange to almost £3bn.

Government position

The deal emerged a week after the government published a draft national policy statement on datacentres, describing them as as fundamental to the economy as railways and electricity networks. However, the congested grid and legally binding climate targets raise questions over how a rush to build datacentres could be powered without relying heavily on expensive, polluting off-grid gas generation.