UK Wants Datacenters To Pay A Fee For Grid Connection Requests
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
Ofgem is seeking feedback on proposals to levy a fee on datacenter development projects at the time they apply for a grid connection.
The move aims to discourage companies from seeking approval for speculative applications that clog up the pipeline and cause connection delays, without ever resulting in finished datacenters.
The UK regulator for electricity and gas says connection applications for electrical supply have surged from 41 gigawatts (GW) to 125 GW in under a year, with datacenters accounting for at least 80 GW of the new demand.
Even before that happened, one of the UK's big developers complained that its build teams faced a wait of "a number of years" for work such as local substation upgrades to increase grid capacity.
Ofgem is proposing a Datacenter Commitment Fee paid by the developers of large server farm projects when accepting a grid connection offer. The fee would be refunded once the facility is drawing power, or forfeitedif the project exits the queueearly instead.
Alan Howard, Omdia principal analyst for Colocation and DC Building,told us previously that the power connection queue issue is a big problem, not just for the UK, but also in the US and other markets around the globe.
"The strategy for many datacenter operators is to secure multiple land parcel rights, request a grid load connection for each (often requiring a costly load study), and see what gets approved so they can build. The capital investment to take all these projects seriously is clearly untenable and a huge financial risk for the energy sector if the demand doesn't fully materialize," he said.
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