Datacentre Developers Plan 181GW of On-Site Gas Power, Research Shows

New research from BloombergNEF reveals that datacentre developers across the United States, United Kingdom and mainland Europe have announced proposals for 181 gigawatts of on-site gas-fired generation—almost four times Great Britain's total peak electricity demand. More than 90% of the proposed capacity is in the US. The findings, published November 11, 2026, as global leaders gathered for the COP31 climate summit in Turkey, highlight a growing gap between the tech industry's net-zero pledges and the physical infrastructure being planned to power AI expansion.

What the numbers show

BloombergNEF's report, commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies, tallies announced proposals rather than forecasting what will be built. The projects "vary widely in maturity and timing," the firm says, and should be viewed as an indication of potential scale [4]. If every proposed US plant were built and operated under BNEF's modeling assumptions, annual emissions would reach roughly 345 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent—about 152 million tonnes more than supplying the same datacentre capacity with average US grid electricity [2]. That incremental amount equals roughly 10% of US power-sector emissions in 2025 [2].

The report projects total datacentre electricity demand will nearly quadruple to 2,354 terawatt-hours by 2035, reaching 7% of global electricity consumption [4]. AI facilities are a subset of that total; the projection covers datacentres overall.

The "speed to power" driver

Mark Daly, BNEF's head of datacentres and emerging tech, attributes the rush to on-site generation to "the extraordinary economics around AI" making speed to power "one of the most important priorities for defining constraints on datacentre developers" [1][4]. Grid connection queues in the US and Europe are delaying large loads, while the financial rewards for bringing computing capacity online quickly push developers toward their own gas supply as a bridge [4].

In the UK, planned datacentres made more than 100 inquiries about gas connections in 2024-25, according to Future Energy Networks, the gas network industry body [1]. Two early projects—Wapseys Wood in Buckinghamshire and Quest Park in Bedfordshire—are seeking to build on-site gas plants after facing long waits for grid connections. Both have been fast-tracked through the government's nationally significant infrastructure project regime, which bypasses locally elected planning authorities [1].

Temporary plants, permanent risk

Developers characterise the gas plants as temporary, to be used only until grid connections arrive. BNEF warns the economics could encourage them to keep running afterwards. "Once they are online, the economics could encourage them to continue generating energy, creating a longer-term fossil-fuel lock-in risk beyond the annual emissions," the report states [4]. Daly told the Guardian: "The climate outcome will depend not only on how much electricity these facilities use, but on how quickly grids can connect them and whether power systems add cleaner generation alongside that demand" [1].

UK policy opens the door

The UK government published the Data Centre Covenant, which commits the government to "develop a tightly controlled framework to permit on site generation until a grid connection can be secured" [5]. The covenant says this would apply only to "exceptionally strategic projects" where other measures cannot secure sufficient capacity in time, subject to conditions including energy security [5]. Eligibility criteria and the definition of "strategic" datacentres are to be set later.

Oliver Hayes, head of policy and campaigns at Global Action Plan, called private gas power stations for datacentres "a red line for any government serious about climate action" and said "no one seriously believes these gas power stations will be temporary – once they're built, they'll lock in high emissions for years" [1].

What remains uncertain

The 181GW figure is an inventory of announcements, not a construction forecast [2][4]. BNEF says evidence on which grid-connection policies work best is currently limited [4]. The report reviews approaches across 17 markets—including flexible connections, clean-power procurement and special zones—but cannot yet say which will prove most effective at cutting both waiting times and emissions. In emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia, where grids remain coal-heavy, the calculus differs: BNEF finds grid-connected datacentres can sometimes be worse for emissions than on-site gas, underscoring the need for new clean generation alongside new demand [4].

The Data Centre Covenant's framework for temporary generation has not been detailed. Whether the "tightly controlled" conditions will be enforced, and whether developers will voluntarily retire gas plants once grid power arrives, are open questions.