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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 July 2025

Debate

Data Centres: Energy and Water Consumption

Contribution

The AI Energy Council is set up as a joint council between the Secretary of States for DESNZ and for DSIT. The noble Earl is right that, at the moment, around 2.5% of current total energy consumption is in data centres. The total amount of electricity use is due to go up from seven to 62 terawatt hours by 2050. In relation to the overall increase in requirement for electric vehicles and others, that is still about 10% of the total. However, it is a really important issue that the energy council is looking at and it leads to questions about the supply, and work on small module reactors may be part of the solution.

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