Data Dive: The Carbon Bill for the UK's Datacentre Boom
Computer Weekly, Tuesday, October 13th, 2026
Computer Weekly estimates the UK datacentre estate emits about 1.5 MtCO2e a year, with a planned pipeline several times larger.
A Computer Weekly count puts the UK's running datacentre estate at about 1.5GW across 90 to 110 sites, mostly in London and the M4 corridor.
On today's grid it emits about 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, similar to UK domestic aviation, and the planning pipeline holds 173 projects and more than 14.6GW of capacity.
The analysis estimates operational and embodied carbon and adjusts for utilisation, noting that typical enterprise servers run at 10% to 20%.
Location and power source drive most of the outcome.