Data centres in Inner London: electricity use and sites

In 2024, data centres in Inner London used 489 GWh (0.49 TWh) of electricity from the grid. That was 2.7% of all grid electricity consumed in the area src.

The trend, 2020 to 2024

Gigawatt-hours of grid electricity used by data centres each year, and that use as a share of all grid electricity in Inner London. Source: DESNZ src.

Use went from 503 GWh in 2020 to 489 GWh in 2024, down 3%, while the share of local electricity moved from 2.8% to 2.7%. DESNZ counted 38 operational data centres here in 2020 and 38 in 2024 src. Across Great Britain, data centre use rose 41% over the same period.

How Inner London ranks

Inner London used 11.0% of all data centre electricity in Great Britain in 2024 (489 of 4,460 GWh). Among the 8 areas DESNZ splits Great Britain into, it ranks 3rd for total data centre electricity and 3rd for the share of local electricity going to data centres src. For comparison, data centres used 1.8% of grid electricity across Great Britain as a whole.

1. South East: 1,785 GWh, 5.1% of local electricity
2. Outer London: 1,169 GWh, 7.1% of local electricity
3. Inner London: 489 GWh, 2.7% of local electricity
4. South West and Wales: 372 GWh, 1.1% of local electricity
5. East of England: 339 GWh, 1.4% of local electricity
6. The North: 166 GWh, 0.3% of local electricity
7. The Midlands: 87 GWh, 0.2% of local electricity
8. Scotland: 51 GWh, 0.2% of local electricity

What that much electricity means

489 GWh is about the yearly electricity of 196,000 typical UK homes, at Ofgem's 2,500 kWh a year for a medium home src. DESNZ's two figures also imply that all grid users in Inner London used about 18,253 GWh in 2024 (data centre use ÷ its share).

Derived: homes = data centre kWh ÷ 2,500 kWh, rounded to 3 significant figures. Implied area total = data centre GWh ÷ share. Share of GB = area GWh ÷ GB data centre GWh.

Inside Inner London

DESNZ splits this area further src:

• Tower Hamlets: 430 GWh in 2024 (88% of Inner London), 18.2% of its local electricity
• The rest of Inner London: 59 GWh in 2024 (12% of Inner London), 0.4% of its local electricity

Mapped data centre sites

DESNZ doesn't publish the exact boundary it uses for Inner London, so we don't count mapped sites here rather than risk a wrong number. See every mapped site on the map.

Nearby and related areas

• Data centres in Tower Hamlets: 430 GWh
• Data centres in Outer London: 1,169 GWh
• Data centres in Slough: 1,293 GWh
• Data centres in Hillingdon: 536 GWh
• Data centres in Hampshire: 239 GWh
• Data centres in Greater Manchester: 95 GWh

All UK areas, sortable →