125GW of grid requests.
Most of it is data centres.
Ofgem published plans on 29 July to clear speculative data centre projects out of the queue for grid connections. The queue for new demand rose from 41GW to 125GW in seven months. Data centres are about 80GW of it. Britain peaks at around 60GW.
📈 How the queue got here
Between November 2024 and June 2025 applications to connect new demand tripled. A lot of it is AI compute looking for cheap power and a fast answer.
Some of it is real. Much of it is the same project applied for in five places at once, hoping one comes through first.
Every speculative application sits in front of a real one. A factory, a heat network, a housing estate.
💰 The fix Ofgem proposes
A commitment fee of £237,500 to £712,500 per megawatt, roughly 2.5% to 7.5% of project cost. Refunded when the project energises. Forfeited if it walks away.
Earlier reforms already moved about 7.8GW of genuine projects forward by an average of six years. By August Ofgem said the queue was less than half its old size with over 750 offers issued.
Consultation closes 16 September.
🏠 Why it lands on your bill
Grid upgrades are paid for through network charges, which are part of your standing charge. Building for demand that never turns up is money spent for nothing.
The other half of the story is flexibility. A data centre that can turn down for an hour when the grid is tight is worth more than one that cannot. The same is true of a house.
Whoever is cheapest to move gets paid to move. Right now that is households, and most are not connected to anything that would pay them.
The grid is not short of electricity. It is short of wires and short of people willing to move their demand. One of those takes a decade to fix. The other takes an app.