Drax plans major datacentre at UK’s most polluting power plant

Drax has struck a deal with infrastructure investor Brookfield and AI infrastructure platform Radiant to develop a datacentre at its North Yorkshire power station. The project could attract more than £20bn in investment and eventually exceed 1 gigawatt of capacity, potentially making it the UK’s largest datacentre. Its initial phase would provide up to 100MW of compute capacity and begin operating in the first quarter of 2028.

Drax will initially provide land and access to existing national grid connections. It hopes to power the facility directly by the early 2030s, subject to regulatory approval. Chief executive Will Gardiner said the development would protect hundreds of jobs and strengthen domestic AI capabilities. The project offers a potential source of future revenue as government support for the power station declines.

The plant generates almost 5% of Britain’s electricity by burning woody biomass pellets and is the country’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, according to analysts. Its emissions are excluded from government accounting because Drax claims equivalent carbon is absorbed by growing trees. Following concerns over its sustainability claims, ministers have limited its future role and halved access to its current £2m a day subsidies for 2027 to 2031. Britain’s congested electricity grid and legally binding climate targets pose broader challenges for datacentre expansion.