Two planned datacentres will produce more carbon emissions between them than oil and gas giant ExxonMobil’s entire annual UK output, new data shows.

Their gigantic carbon footprint underscores the “serious threat” datacentre construction poses to Britain’s climate goals, according to analysis first reported by the Guardian.

The Wapseys Wood datacentre in Buckinghamshire and the Quest Park datacentre in Bedfordshire will use 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of power and generate more than 4.5m tonnes of carbon emissions, according to analysis by non-profit Foxglove.

By comparison, fossil fuel multinational ExxonMobil emitted 3.9m tonnes in 2023, global energy thinktank Ember reported.

AI datacentres require vast amounts of energy to run thousands of servers and cooling equipment around the clock.

In total, there are 315 datacentres in line to connect to the UK’s electricity grid – representing 73GW of demand, almost twice the amount of energy consumed at peak times across the whole country during winter.

As a result, Wapseys Wood and Quest Park datacentres are looking to construct their own gas-fired power stations on-site to bypass the long wait.

Labour MP Toby Perkins, chair of the Commons environmental audit committee, called the analysis a “potent reminder that without the right measures in place, data centres could represent a serious threat to the environment and to our legally-binding climate goals”.

While a government spokesperson called the figures “misleading” since they were based on the notion that Wapseys Wood and Quest Park datacentre would run at full demand from day one, Foxglove’s head of communications Tom Hegarty said such assumptions were standard practice in the industry.

The two planned datacentres were among the first to be fast-tracked through the government’s nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP) regime, bypassing local planning authorities – a move criticised as “insulating” projects from local scrutiny.

Oliver Hayes, head of policy at the campaign group Global Action Plan, said the two energy-hungry datacentre projects were “catastrophic for our carbon budgets”.

Sam Hunter-Jones, a lawyer with environmental law charity ClientEarth added: “The reality is that unchecked datacentre growth is making the transition away from fossil fuels harder, not easier.”

Extreme weather, including a series of heatwaves and drought across England and Wales, have placed major stress on the UK’s energy supplies this summer with whistleblowers warning that the grid was becoming “increasingly unmanageable”.

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