AI race puts pressure on utilities to wrest more from Europe’s power grids

European countries are race To bring new data centers online as AI labs around the world continue to demand more computing. The primary limiting factor is energy, specifically, the ability to move it.

Although Europe is on track to generate enough energy, utility experts say, grid operators widely lack the infrastructure needed to move it where it needs to go. this Throttle network capacity Hence, the number of new power-hungry data centers that can connect without risking a power outage.

National Grid, which runs the transmission network in England and Wales, says proposed data centers representing more than 30 gigawatts of energy demand are waiting to connect to its grid, equivalent to two-thirds of peak demand in Great Britain. Even taking into account the possibility that some of these data centers will never be built, there is currently not enough space to accommodate them.

Waiting for permission to connect is Which caused the collapse of some data center projectsundermining European Ambitions To acquire a share of Hundreds of billions of dollars AI labs spend on computing. “Across Europe, projects are being canceled due to inaccessibility of the network,” says Taku Engelaar, managing director at network optimization company Neira.

Under pressure from the government to clear the blockage, grid operators are experimenting with ways to squeeze additional capacity from their existing grids — from swapping out the metal used in power lines, to bypassing congestion areas, to limiting the amount of power moving up and down lines based on changes in weather conditions.

“There’s no one simple solution,” says Steve Smith, president of National Grid Partners, National Grid’s venture capital division. “What you have to do is a lot of everything.”

The queue of data centers has begun waiting to join the UK network It swells rapidly at the end of 2024soon from the government assigned to them “Critical National Infrastructure.” Since then, connection requests have exceeded even the most ambitious expectations, according to the UK energy regulator Ofgem, and the waiting list has tripled in size. “We knew we had this new wave of demand coming from transportation electrification and heating,” Smith says. “Now we have artificial intelligence at the forefront.”

One obvious solution is to build new power lines, but this is expensive and slow. Depending on the scale of development, it could take between seven and fourteen years to build new transport infrastructure, taking into account potential planning issues, legal objections, supply chain and labor bottlenecks, and construction. “It takes time to put things on the ground, connect them together and bring in assistant referees to do all that work,” says Jack Presley Abbott, deputy director of strategic planning and communications at Ofgem.

The UK’s particular geography poses further problems. A large proportion of the UK’s renewable energy is generated in Scotland and northern England, while energy consumption – including by data centers – is concentrated in the opposite, more populous end of the country. Meanwhile, the difficult terrain on the UK’s western side means that transmission lines have to be routed through the east of the country’s landmass or abroad, limiting options for expanding the network.

Against this backdrop, National Grid is experimenting with technologies that could be applied after an incident to squeeze more capacity out of the grid and perhaps allow more data centers to connect. “Large customers who are willing to pay to use your network are great. The trick is, can you find ways to connect them where you don’t have to build massive amounts of new infrastructure?” says Smith.