London Climate Action Week | AI Data Centres: Power Burden or Future Grid Flexibility Backbone?

By 2030, UK data-centre capacity could rise to between 3.3 GW and 6.3 GW with more than 17 GW of data-centre capacity estimated to be under construction in the US.

This event will focus on the challenge of deploying data centres within capacity-constrained power grids, and the implications for energy costs and carbon emissions. The panel will explore opportunities for data centre power flexibility to support faster grid connections, lower system costs and clean energy integration.

The discussion will bring together perspectives from power systems engineering, data centre development, AI infrastructure, sustainability and grid operation, and will cover practical questions around connection queues, flexible operation, workload management and energy efficiency.

​The event is informed by recent Oxford research on AI data centre flexibility and the ARIA funded SAGEflex project on safeguarded AI for grid-edge flexibility.

Policymakers, industry partners, investors, researchers and others interested in AI infrastructure, clean energy and climate action are warmly invited.

Hosts: The ZERO Institute and the Power Systems Architecture Lab, University of Oxford

This event is part of Oxford House at London Climate Action Week

​By registering your interest in this event, you agree to the ZERO Institute Events Code of Conduct

Event details

Event date:
June 24, 2026

Event time:
3:00 pm

 

Location: Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial St, London E1 6LS

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