Whole neighborhoods in the UK will no longer be able to host new homes, and data centers are to blame
Data centers have saturated the electrical and network infrastructures. The work required to connect the new buildings to the grid will take years.
Whole neighborhoods in the UK will no longer be able to host new buildings . It means that the authorization for the construction of new houses – but also of new offices – will suffer a major setback, with important repercussions on the prices of the real estate market. Blame the data centers .
The problem is affecting an increasing number of medium and large cities, but it is mainly concentrated in London , home to some of the largest and most important data centers in the world. It’s very simple: a data center requires an enormous amount of energy to operate. But not only that: it also requires an enormous amount of cables for the optical fiber (and obviously the same amount of bandwidth, which is not infinite). As a result, they are rapidly saturating the network infrastructure of entire neighborhoods.
Center, some infrastructures are scalable. The production output of the power stations can be increased, new channels can be excavated and the backbone of the fiber optic networks can also be strengthened. But all of this takes many years.
The result is that those who apply today to build new condominiums, shopping centers or offices will have to wait several years before receiving the Ok when the construction sites start. Either like this or buildings isolated from the electricity grid are built. The Greater London Authority did not provide accurate information on waiting times.
The most affected neighborhoods are all in East London: Hillingdon , Ealing , and Hounslow . Overall, they house about 11% of the entire range of residential properties in the English capital. A big problem.
Construction companies have just begun to unravel this complicated tangle, but as far as we know this situation has already compromised the development of at least 25 new real estate units. Quite simply, it is not currently possible to build these buildings
explained David O’Leary, policy director of the Home Builders Federation, a trade association of British builders.
- Too Many Servers Could Mean No New Homes in Parts of the UK (gizmodo.com)
