Starmer's power play No 10's AI dream threatens to derail clean energy promises

Keir Starmer this week launched a plan to bring a twentyfold increase in the amount of artificial intelligence (AI) computing power under public control by 2030.

- Jillian Ambrose

But the race to build more electricity-hungry AI data centres over the next five years appears to work against another government target: to plug in enough low-carbon electricity projects to create a clean power system by that date.

Was the government on track to meet its green power goal?

To meet the 2030 target based on current estimates of power use, the government believes Britain needs to double its onshore wind, triple its solar power and quadruple its offshore wind capabilities. It is also considering hefty financing deals to support new nuclear projects.

Britain shut the last of its coal power plants last year and the government has promised that by the end of the decade it will use gas plants only sparingly to create a 95% carbon-free electricity system by 2030. However, gas still plugs gaps when wind and solar are not enough. That's what happened last week when the grid operator was forced to pay a pair of gas plants rates up to 100 times higher than normal market prices to generate electricity as temperatures fell below freezing and the UK's green power generation slumped.

Kate Mulvany of Cornwall Insight, a UK energy consultancy, said: "All our modelling suggests that on the current trajectory the government's [2030] target will be extremely stretching. We cannot see how these targets can be met with current schemes and policies."

How would an AI boom affect this?