Data centres and the renewable opportunity

4 September 2025 | 11:00 – 12 :00 | Microsoft Teams webinar

Data centres host the core IT infrastructure that supports all digital activity across communities, businesses, and the Government. Every time we send an email, buy something online, or save something to the cloud, it is all made possible via data centres. As such, they are fundamental to our modern way of living, the digitisation of society, and the establishment of a smart energy system.

With the number of internet users in the UK more than doubling since 2005, there is enormous demand for additional data centres to process this increase in data consumption, and their importance is only set to increase as that consumption continues to grow. In fact, the latest Future Energy Scenarios from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) project the energy demand of data centres to rise from an estimated 7.6TWh today, to around 33TWh by 2035.

To explore their importance and answer your questions, we will be hosting a webinar at 11:00am on Thursday 4 September - where we will taking a closer look at:

• What data centres provide in the context of the UK's energy transition.


• How renewable energy and data centres will work together to drive decarbonisation.


• How data centres constitute a flexible form of demand and what they can offer in terms of locational concerns and constraints, as well as latency challenges.

The webinar will be hosted by Barney Wharton, RenewableUK's Director of Future Electricity Systems - alongside a panel of David Wildash, Chief Strategy Officer at Apatura, Malavika Gode, Senior Associate at Aurora Energy Research, and Rimshah Javed, Principal Originator at Equinor - and there will be an opportunity to put your questions to the panel.