Nscale’s Loughton AI site slips as 315 data centers queue for the grid
UK Power Networks has reportedly told the company its 90MW connection may not arrive until the early-to-mid 2030s, and Ofgem’s own figures show why: the demand queue is almost three times Britain’s peak load
- Ofgem’s 29 July 2026 consultation counts around 315 data center projects holding about 73GW of contracted capacity.
- Contracted demand in the queue rose from 41GW in November 2024 to 125GW in June 2025; peak Great Britain demand was 45GW.
- Nscale announced Loughton on 16 September 2025 with 50MW scalable to 90MW and 23,040 GB300 GPUs due in Q1 2027.
- Ofgem proposes a commitment fee of £237,500 to £712,500 per megawatt, refunded when a project is energized.
The gating factor for UK AI capacity is now a substation date rather than a GPU allocation, so a hosting partner’s promise is only as good as its connection offer. Resellers and MSPs selling sovereign AI hosting should ask every provider for its energization date and queue position before a go-live goes into a contract, and should expect capacity announced in 2025 to land later and carry more cost up front once Ofgem’s fee is in place.
Operators with power already connected – colocation halls with headroom and providers able to add on-site generation – win; partners who pre-sold capacity against a 2027 date lose.
“Britain’s electricity demand connections queue has more than tripled in size in less than a year, and consumers should not bear the risks created by speculative projects taking up space in the system.”Eleanor Warburton, director for energy system design and development, Ofgem
Ofgem’s July consultation on demand connections put Britain’s grid problem in one table: around 315 data center projects holding about 73GW of contracted capacity, against peak demand across Great Britain of 45GW in 2025–26. On 24 September that queue claimed a casualty, when The Guardian reported that Nscale’s Loughton site – billed by the government as the UK’s largest sovereign AI data center – will not open in 2027 as planned.
Nscale announced the campus with Microsoft in September 2025: 50MW scalable to 90MW, with 23,040 Nvidia GB300 GPUs due in Q1 2027 to serve Azure customers. The government had cited it in January 2025 when it launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan alongside a $2.5bn (£1.9bn) pledge from the company. Nscale, which raised $3.36bn (£2.54bn) in pre-IPO convertible notes on 25 September, has since cleared the site.
The delay was first reported by Morning Intelligence and picked up by The Guardian on 24 September. UK Power Networks (UKPN), the distribution operator for the site, has told Nscale the 90MW connection may not be available until the early-to-mid 2030s, the paper reported, as works on the wider transmission network come first. Nscale told the paper it was “committed to the project” and is looking at on-site generation and ways to bring the connection forward.
Where Loughton sits in the queue
At 90MW, Loughton falls into the band Ofgem calls ‘large’: 51 projects totaling 3,492MW, under 5% of the queue, while 206 extra-large and hyperscale schemes make up 93%. Ofgem’s remedy, consulted on until September, is a per-megawatt commitment fee refunded on energization plus queue milestones.
