Data Centres: Energy Demand

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I completely agree with the noble Earl that merely believing that it is all going to be okay and that we can easily absorb all these additional demands on the energy sector without doing anything else is, at least, a folly. That is why the Government are taking substantial steps, for example through the AI growth zones, to make sure that we plan where data centres will be and make sure that those data centres are as closely aligned as possible with sources of either optimised electricity or constrained electricity or with new sources of energy production, so that the AI data centre development is not a burden on the system but an addition to it.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, remounting my favourite hobby horse, can I ask: when will the Government give increased support for tidal power, which, unlike wind and solar, never runs out?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I welcome that question from the noble Lord. This is an issue that is quite close to my heart, and I recently visited the Liverpool tidal barrage scheme to see how it is doing. I personally am committed to developing tidal power, both tidal stream and tidal range, but there is still some way to go in working out how that can be value for money and can be supported through various longer-term methods of support because of the long life that tidal range in particular has in front of it.