Nscale's £2bn UK data centre project delayed by grid connection issues

Data centre developer Nscale has been informed that the power supply for its flagship UK project will not be ready in time for its planned 2027 opening, according to reports. The £2bn facility in Essex, which is intended to provide Nvidia GPUs to clients like Microsoft, is awaiting a critical 90-megawatt grid connection.

This delay highlights a growing bottleneck for data centre construction across the UK, where limited grid capacity struggles to meet the immense electricity demands of these facilities. Nscale is reportedly in discussions with California-based Bloom Energy to explore alternative power generation using solid oxide fuel cells as a temporary measure.

Nscale has stated its continued commitment to the Essex project. However, delays can incur financial penalties for data centre operators if they fail to deliver computing capacity by agreed-upon dates, sometimes leading to payments to customers to account for the disruption.

Industry data from Sightline Climate indicates that 26% of data centre capacity was delayed in 2025, with projections suggesting 30–50% of global data centre capacity expected for 2026 could face delays due to power constraints, equipment shortages, or local opposition.

The company, which has secured over $5bn in funding from investors including Nokia and Nvidia, has faced prior challenges. Their other UK site in Northumberland was suspended by OpenAI earlier this year due to high energy costs. Nscale is currently developing data centres in five countries.