Blackstone wants to plug hyperscale datacenter into former Britishvolt battery site
- Reference: 1713267712
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/16/blackstone_wants_to_buy_britishvolt_site_for_dc/
- Source link:
[1]Blackstone , which styles itself as the world's largest alternative asset manager, is looking to acquire the site near Blyth in Northumberland in northeast England where ill-fated Britishvolt aimed to build a local battery gigafactory to supply the electric vehicle market.
[2]
The site of the Britishvolt "gigaplant" battery cell manufacturing site in Cambois, Blyth, Northumberland, UK, pictured in 2022
The intent is to construct a hyperscale bit barn at the location to be operated by its datacenter subsidiary QTS Realty, which Blackstone acquired in 2021. The site may prove to be one of the largest such facilities in Europe if all goes as planned.
However, The Register understands that Blackstone must first obtain an agreement from Northumberland County Council, which has a buyback option on the land, currently in the hands of Britishvolt's receivers. The council is set to vote on this on April 23.
In return, the Council could receive up to £110 million ($137 million) from Blackstone, so this seems likely to be approved, and the company will subsequently buy the land for about £20 million ($25 million).
[3]
Yet even then, Blackstone would need to secure planning permission and negotiate power supply contracts before committing itself to constructing the proposed datacenter campus.
[4]
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A Blackstone spokesperson told The Register : "Blackstone and QTS have the capital, expertise and track record required to deliver on growing demand for datacenter infrastructure. We applaud the Council's focus on revitalizing a stranded site, and we look forward to engaging with them and the wider stakeholder community as we progress this meaningful potential investment."
Blackstone is looking to spend as much as £10 billion ($12.45 billion) on the site, which it believes could eventually accommodate facilities with as much as 750 MW in capacity. By comparison, all the [6]datacenters in the London region are understood to add up to just over 1 GW (1,000 MW) of capacity.
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Britishvolt had planned to build a giant battery factory at the Blyth location and create about 3,000 skilled jobs in the process. However, the company struggled to turn a profit and eventually [8]entered administration in January last year, after running out of cash.
The administrator, EY, had planned to sell the site to another battery manufacturer, Recharge Industries of Australia, but there was a [9]reported dispute over transferring a grid connection contract signed by Britishvolt, and it seems that Recharge [10]failed to complete payments to acquire the site.
If the Blackstone development goes ahead, it could be good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it. A [11]report earlier this year from commercial real estate outfit CBRE said that datacenter capacity in Europe was not keeping pace with demand, and that hyperscalers were snapping up much of what was available. It blamed difficulties in sourcing sufficient power and acquiring available land.
[12]Car industry pleads for delay to post-Brexit tariffs on EVs
[13]Post-Brexit tariffs on cross EU-UK electrical vehicle imports still going ahead
[14]Demand for datacenter capacity in Europe sees busiest Q2 ever
[15]Fights, floods, and fortunes when cloud giants roll into town
But the head of Britain's National Grid also warned that [16]datacenter power consumption is growing fast , and on track to expand by 500 percent over the next decade. Meeting this demand for power could prove a challenge.
The Register recently reported on [17]power constraints in Ireland , where bit barns will soon account for about a quarter of all electricity consumption. This may already be causing restrictions on the resources that cloud users can spin up in the region. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.blackstone.com/
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/16/shutterstock-britishvolt-former-site.jpg
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zh6gm@gU2Hv5oW@iE3GKlwAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zh6gm@gU2Hv5oW@iE3GKlwAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zh6gm@gU2Hv5oW@iE3GKlwAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/top-data-center-markets/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zh6gm@gU2Hv5oW@iE3GKlwAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303149
[9] https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/britishvolt-deal-risk-collapse-over-power-supply-contract-ft-2023-03-31/
[10] https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/financial/administrations/britishvolt-administrators-look-for-new-buyer-after-deal-stalls-23-02-2024/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/20/europe_datacenter_space/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/25/car_industry_brexit_tariff/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/07/postbrexit_tariffs_on_electrical_vehicle/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/demand_for_datacenter_capacity_rise_europe/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/03/datacenter_virginia_rules/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/27/ceo_of_uks_national_grid/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/aws_resource_restrictions/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The irony here being that the site was previously occupied by a power station.
North Sea Link
The North Sea Link that is an undersea cable that the UK uses to import electricity from Norway. It terminates in at a site nearby so I would have though they would tap into that.
New VM instance type.
You can get a low priority instance with cloud providers where it gets run when the data center isn't busy with higher paying work. I wonder if there'll one day be instances where it only runs when it's windy enough to power it from a local turbine.
Just build a nuke gen plant, yes that takes a few years but better to plan/build now while the datacenter is being planned/built and the grid can just about accommodate it unless they expect the Blyth offshore wind farms to do the job.
Guessing they may be working on the assumption that SMRs become a thing. But even then it'd need a few for both resilience and simply provide 750MW. If it's near the coast though, cooling should be more doable, if they can overcome objections to the 'n' word. But Blackstone has been very good at buying influence.
"a few years"
Do you know how long Hinkley C took to plan/agree, and the build is still going on, now expected to complete in 2027, although they're talking about another delay to 2029-31 now.
And the cost is now projected to be £46bn, which dwarfs the investment Blackstone expects to put into the datacentre.
Personally, I think EDF is taking the UK government for a ride, with the ever greater projected costs. I'm sure that they are financially benefiting somewhere, and will probably expect the UK government to pick up the pieces when it eventually proves unprofitable because it's "too big to fail".
Re: "a few years"
Just wait until someone finds out a third of that reactor is owned by China Nuclear...
Re: "a few years"
I am pretty certain that the UK government bought the Chinese share out a while back.
And I believe that the Sizewell contract that the Chinese wanted 100% of, plus the ability to provide their own labour and project management is never going to be awarded to them.
Plus the fact that there are two new reactors being built, not just one.
How would a single site with the power requirements of an entire power station fail to put any pressure on the system? Unless they have alternative power ideas ... which would be interesting.