A second major data centre could be on the cards in North Lincolnshire.
A pre-application document has been filed with the council for a potential data centre park on land south and east of Elsham Wolds Industrial Estate. The data centre could have up to 1,000MW IT load capacity, and employ up to 1,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs when fully operational.The emergence of plans for a data centre off the A15 follows on from councillors last year approving plans for a £2.2bn data centre near South Killingholme, south of the A160. That data centre, called Humber Tech Park, has potential for an estimated 370 FTE jobs when up and running, and 300 more jobs during its three-year construction.
The Elsham Wolds possible data centre would take longer to complete, but also could create a larger number of jobs. Details are limited at this stage - a screening opinion has been sought for an environmental impact assessment (EIA). This is ahead of seeking outline planning permission, which would even then not spell out full design details as it largely is restricted to deciding on the principle of development.
But the document filed by Pegasus Group on behalf of a Elsham Tech Park Ltd - no company with that specific title currently exists on Companies House - does provide some indication of the scale of the data centre park planned.The overall site location spans about 180 hectares. There would be a series of buildings comprising the data centre aspect and including offices - data centre buildings would be no taller than 14-23m high, and up to 4m high flues. As well as internal plant and cooling equipment, emergency backup generators are planned too - indicated currently as likely to be diesel-powered.
There would also be a district heating centre and buildings constructed for agricultural purposes. The site would have capacity for up to 49.9MW on-site energy generation from either gas, hydrogen, or fuel cell. The previously approved South Killingholme data centre will involve greenhouses powered by excess data centre heat and the same waste heat model appears to be planned at Elsham Wolds.The data centre park would use the same A15 junction as the adjacent industrial estate. It could potentially support up to 1,000 FTE jobs once complete, but the actual number will depend on the precise configuration of its activities.
The park would be built out in stages due to the commercial element of the proposal. "It is anticipated if the construction process runs as a continual process for all items within the proposed development it will take up to 10 years to complete construction," Pegasus Group state in the pre-application document.
The latest data centre plan in North Lincolnshire comes two months after the council announced it wants the Government to designate Northern Lincolnshire area an 'AI Growth Zone'. It argues such a creation, which would work in some ways similar to Humber Freeport but aimed at attracting AI and data centres, would bring £15bn in private business investment and 1.5 gigawatts of AI processing capacity locally.
When North Lincolnshire Council proclaimed its AI Growth Zone ambition, it mentioned the Humber Tech Centre, previous advanced manufacturing park plans for disused British Steel land in Scunthorpe, and that two other sites were in the early stages of development.
