Earl Russell (LD)

My Lords, in opening this group of amendments on AI infrastructure and community energy I will move my Amendment 185N and speak also to Amendment 185P. The simple truth is that AI’s energy and water demands are outpacing our development of policies to regulate AI’s energy and water usage. AI’s expected energy usage is due to go up from 7 terawatt hours to 62 terawatt hours by 2050, which is enough to power 27 million homes. Some estimate that it could go up to 71 terawatt hours by 2050. AI is exceptionally power-hungry just at the pinch point when we are desperately trying to reach clean power. Against this background, our overall electricity demand is set to double by 2050. SMRs will help, but we should note that they will not come online until the mid-2030s. Meanwhile, many big tech companies are rowing back from their clean energy targets; Google is one example. This Bill is notably silent on AI, meaning that planning frameworks lack explicit provisions to assess or moderate the substantial energy and water demands of AI. I believe that, with the right legislation, we can make provision to require that AI is used for public good by ensuring that its power is also applied to finding ways we can drive national energy savings and efficiencies. AI is a powerful tool used to drive energy efficiencies, for example by enhancing the electricity grid, providing stability and efficiency and improving forecasting and integrations of variable amounts of new renewable energy generation and unlocking substantial transmission capacity savings without the need for new power lines. More widely, AI can be used to heat and cool our buildings, improve our transport sector and to improve any number of industrial processes requiring large amounts of energy. So there is potential for huge savings by employing AI. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a national AI energy efficiency strategy within 18 months. This would establish projections of energy use as material planning considerations and mandate developers to account for both supply and efficiency measures in their applications. The measure also aims to ensure that surplus energy resources from data centres can be fed back into the national grid at times of energy need. Amendment 185P also looks at the significant issue of projected water usage by AI. A typical data centre can use as much water as 100,000 homes. At present, 8.5 million homes in the UK are subject to hosepipe bans. Seven out of 17 regions in England are expected to have water stress by 2030 and 12 by 2040. The shortfall between sustainable water supplies and expected demand is projected by Defra to be nearly 5 billion litres per day by 2050. This represents more than one-third of the 14 million litres we use daily. Facing a warmer world, it is essential that national policy demands a clear water efficiency strategy, enforces targets for alternative cooling technologies and ensures that planning authorities rigorously assess water availability and resilience before consenting to new developments. I absolutely welcome the relatively newly established AI Energy Council and the work being done but, to date, this is an evolving project without any clear outcomes. Will the Government, at the very least, mandate that the AI Energy Council formulates clear policies and formally reports on these matters within a set timeframe? I also ask the Government to give a clear commitment to an energy and water efficiency strategy for AI and to develop a national energy policy statement on AI energy use.