TES has been acquired by Legrand, in a deal that gives the Northern Irish engineering firm access to one of the biggest names in electrical and digital building infrastructure.

The acquisition follows a period of rapid growth for TES, which has built its presence in the European data centre market as well as the UK and Irish utility sectors. The company said it had grown revenue to £72 million and expanded its workforce to around 300 employees.

It’s estimated that around 50% of TES’ revenue currently comes from the data centre sector, with the firm hoping to grow even further to capitalise on the rapid growth that is occurring in the industry in response to the rise of AI. 

Headquartered in Cookstown, County Tyrone, TES has recently expanded its manufacturing footprint with the opening of a 300,000sqft campus in County Derry. That additional capacity should be able to pump out more low-voltage power distribution equipment, ensuring that the company can keep up with demand. 

Earlier this year, Legrand pointed to the data centre market as a key driver of growth. While the firm has long been established in both the residential and commercial power market, it has been eager to compete with players such as Schneider Electric and ABB in the data centre sector. 

So far, its strategy has been paying off. Legrand reported that data centres accounted for 26% of its 2025 revenues, with it noting that the sector has the potential of accounting for 40% of its revenue in the future. This acquisition of TES should help it move towards that goal. 

As part of the deal, TES said it would continue to operate from its existing facilities in Cookstown and Derry following the acquisition, maintaining its focus on local job creation and its specialist divisions serving both the data centre and water utility markets.

Brian Taylor, CEO of TES, noted, “Joining Legrand is a landmark moment for TES. Over the past number of years, we have scaled our operations at an incredible pace, and this acquisition is a testament to the hard work and expertise of our entire team. Legrand’s global reach and market-leading position in the electrical sector provide the perfect platform for TES to further expand our international presence. We are excited to bring our bespoke engineering solutions to a wider audience while remaining deeply committed to our roots in Northern Ireland.”

Noel McCracken, Managing Director of TES, added, “Our mission has always been to provide innovative, high-quality engineering for critical infrastructure. With the support of Legrand, we can accelerate our investment in state-of-the-art manufacturing and continue to lead the way in both the water and power critical infrastructure markets.”

There are a lot of problems that the data centre industry in the UK has to contend with, whether it’s cooling, planning, power, or more recently public image. But if we break down all those elements, there may be a bigger issue at play – impatience. 

The industry is moving fast to capitalise on the hot new commodity of the moment – AI. Everywhere you look there’s a new AI feature being added to popular apps, or new AI companies launching promising to make people’s everyday lives easier. It’s easy to see why there’s this new wave of AI-in-everything, because that’s where the money is. 

Earlier this year, Gartner estimated that AI spending would top $2.5 trillion in 2026, and with that amount of money floating around – it’s bound to attract a whole swathe of people looking to get their payday. It’s also why you’re seeing more data centre developments than ever before, with new facilities being proposed on what feels like a daily basis. After all, how else are we going to enable AI if we don’t invest heavily in the infrastructure running it? 

That rush to deliver the promise of AI before the money runs out, is one of the reasons the industry is in the spotlight. After all, if you’re proposing to build 140 data centres, which is the number cited by Ofgem as currently in the connections queue, people will start to have questions. And those questions are almost certainly going to focus on power, because we all know AI is power hungry, and we also all know we’re currently living through an energy crisis. 

The queue is being mistaken for real demand

The problem is the debate about the industry’s power usage is being heavily distorted. That’s according to John Booth, DCA Advisory Board Member and Managing Director of Carbon3IT Ltd, who insists that we stop treating speculative projects in the grid connections queue as if they were firm future demand – and maybe, just maybe, take a deep breath and actually plan what we need. 

The distortion comes from the way headline figures are being repeated without enough scrutiny over what they actually represent. This is one of the issues I had with Carbon Brief’s headline, which read as a little on the sensationalist side, but it’s also something Booth has noted with the media’s representation of the industry’s power problem. After all, a project in the connections queue is not the same thing as a live facility, a committed build, or even a scheme with a guaranteed occupier. Yet too often, those distinctions are flattened out in public debate, creating the impression that every project is real, imminent, and destined to become a major new source of demand on the grid.

Booth’s argument is that this is where the conversation starts to go wrong. “The UK data centre operators have a very good handle on data centre construction projects and demands from their hyperscale and global clients, and they are progressing at pace to deliver their requirements,” he says. In other words, the established players aren’t rushing, they’re scaling appropriately to meet demand, but with money to be made in the market, new entrants are coming in who may not have as firm of a grip on realistic demand. The problem is that the wider pipeline is now being viewed as though it all carries the same weight and certainty.

That, according to Booth, is simply not true. “The majority of the ‘new’ projects announced over the past 2 years are property plays, i.e. identify a suitable location, obtain planning and power, and then flip to either an end client or an existing operator or hyperscaler.” 

Now, there’s nothing particularly shocking about that as a commercial strategy. Property speculation exists in every hot market. In fact, I grew up well aware of the property boom happening in Spain in the early 2000s, as investors flocked to build new luxury apartments and homes, hoping to make significant returns. Like those investors found out in the 2008 financial crisis, however, while AI is hot right now, there’s no such thing as a guaranteed return on investment – and that’s why there’s a serious problem when speculative activity gets folded into a wider story about what the country needs to power and build.

Risky speculation shouldn’t shape the narrative

Booth is blunt about the risks. “This is a very risky strategy, as power connections are stretching out to 2037 and new planning rules may require substantial re-design for future AI designs. We also have to believe the AI companies that there will be an actual requirement for this amount of computing power in the future, this is by no means a given.” 

Now, there are many people betting against AI. You just have to take to social media, or even the media in general to see people openly talking about the ‘AI bubble’ and if, or even when, it’s going to pop. While Booth is by no means anti-AI, he does raise an important point. 

The current AI boom has created a rush for position, and in a rush for position plenty of people will try to secure land, power and optionality long before they have secured certainty. And doesn’t that speak to why the debate currently feels so overheated? 

There is a tendency to look at a huge queue number, merge it mentally with the excitement around AI, and conclude that the UK is on the brink of an unavoidable power crunch driven entirely by data centres. But that is a lazy reading of a much more complicated picture. Some demand is real. Some demand is strategic. Some demand is speculative. Some projects will progress. Some will stall. Some will be sold. Some will be redesigned. Some will never make it past the stage of being a good idea on paper backed by the hope that someone richer arrives later.

It’s time to take a deep breah

That’s why for Booth, the answer is not to dismiss the issue, but to slow down and get more serious about what is actually needed – especially when it comes to planning something as complex as the energy grid. “The key point is to remove the speculative projects from the connections queue, take a breath, evaluate exactly what is needed from AI data centres, and build accordingly with a spatial strategy in mind.” 

That last point is especially important. If the UK is serious about AI Growth Zones, serious about supporting strategic digital infrastructure, and serious about avoiding the mistakes of fragmented development, then this cannot just be a race to connect everything, everywhere, all at once. It has to be a question of what should be built, where it should go, and what kind of power system and planning framework is needed to support it.

That in turn brings us back to patience. Not inertia, not delay for delay’s sake, but patience in the sense of discipline. The industry has money chasing AI, developers chasing sites, policymakers chasing growth, and the media chasing dramatic numbers. Under those conditions, it becomes very easy for everyone to talk themselves into a future that looks more settled than it really is. And once that happens, policy starts being shaped not by what is likely, but by what is loudest.

Booth argues that this is already happening. “There appears to be a lot of confusion within DSIT, Ofgem, The AI Energy Council and in the media with regards to current and future data centre energy capacity requirements,” he says. He is equally clear on the consequences of that confusion: “The media speculation surrounding data centre energy use and using flawed information does no one any good and we should wait for a concise plan to be developed by all the stakeholders, which is exactly what is happening right now.”

That is probably the most useful intervention here. The point is not that data centres do not need power, or that AI is not going to reshape infrastructure demand. It is that a speculative queue should not be mistaken for a national blueprint. If the UK wants to have a serious conversation about digital infrastructure, energy security and economic growth, it needs to start by separating what is real from what is aspirational, what is strategic from what is opportunistic, and what is genuinely urgent from what is simply being pushed forward by market impatience.

Because impatience is what sits underneath all of this. The impatience to capture the AI boom. The impatience to secure land and grid access before someone else does. The impatience to turn every large number into a headline. The impatience to build a narrative before a proper plan exists.

And that may be the biggest problem of all.

Equinix has begun construction on a new data centre in Dublin, with the company planning to invest $78 million in the facility.

The new site, known as DB7x, will be built in Blanchardstown, close to two of Equinix’s existing Dublin data centres. It’s expected to offer retail IBX availability from early 2028.

Equinix already has a significant presence in Dublin, with six facilities currently operating in and around the city. What’s notable about all those data centres is that Equinix claims they’re all covered by 100% renewable energy, although its latest facility goes a step further. That’s because despite the furore around the impact new data centre developments have on the grid, DB7x is expected to not place any additional strain on the local energy grid. 

It’s important to note that Equinix’s DB7x data centre will still be connected to the grid, it’s just being constructed on an existing site and using the power that had already been allocated to that site. That’s not quite as significant as another data centre in Dublin, Ireland, which recently claimed to have Europe’s first microgrid, but Equinix has promised that the facility will be set up to be ‘100% flexible’, so that it can support the grid. 

Peter Lantry, Managing Director, Equinix, Ireland, noted, “This is an exciting development for Equinix’s operations in Ireland, as we celebrate 10 years of being in Ireland, investing in its infrastructure and economy. This announcement strongly supports the Government’s recently published Digital and AI Strategy, which outlines a path for keeping Ireland at the forefront of global digital innovation. It also reaffirms our commitment to Ireland and its importance to businesses worldwide.

“This is positive news for the Irish economy and we would like to thank the IDA Ireland for their continued support and collaboration to enable our sustainable growth in Ireland . By expanding colocation capacity in Dublin, we will enable domestic and international enterprises to scale, innovate, and connect across Equinix’s global digital infrastructure platform with ease.”

Anne-Marie Tierney Le Roux, Head of Technology, IDA Ireland, added, “Today’s announcement is a significant boost to Ireland’s digital infrastructure. Equinix’s continued investment demonstrates strong confidence in Ireland as a location for high-performance, sustainable data centre operations. This new facility will enhance the country’s connectivity, support the growth of AI and cloud services and further strengthen Ireland’s position as a leading hub for digital innovation and international investment.”

Nscale has become the latest company to face intense scrutiny over a proposed AI data centre in Essex, in the latest sign of the sector’s growing image problem.

The company plans to build a major AI data centre in Loughton, Essex, and had previously hoped to complete the project by the end of 2026. That timeline was always ambitious, given the skills shortage affecting the UK construction industry and the fact that the site is still being used as a scaffolding yard. But what could actually hold the project back is the industry’s old nemesis – planning. 

Although the data centre received outline approval in 2024, renewed public concern about the impact of such developments has reignited debate around the site. Planning officers at Loughton Town Council have now called for a fresh planning application to be submitted because of changes proposed by Nscale.

Loughton Town Council won’t make the final decision on the project, as that responsibility lies with Epping Forest District Council. However, the objections raised by Loughton’s officers focus on several key concerns.

Unsurprisingly, one of the main issues is power. Reflecting on the wider public anxiety about AI data centres, the town council’s planning officers said they were concerned about the strain the project could place on the local electricity grid. They have called on Nscale to provide further evidence on the development’s likely impact.

In a further objection to the scheme, the officers have also hit back at proposed changes by Nscale – which they say is 50% higher than originally proposed and includes 50% more internal capacity. The objection hinges on power again, however, with it noting that the “proposal would require more cooling and increased energy to facilitate this application.”

As part of their objection, it has asked Nscale to submit a completely new planning application. That could have a major impact on the company’s timeline. Nscale has already pushed back the expected completion date to early 2027, citing technology upgrades rather than the latest planning issues.

An industry under fire

AI is being heralded by the UK Government as an opportunity to boost economic growth, and Nscale has been one of the big success stories. The firm recently completed a funding round which valued it at $14.6 billion, and has also attracted high-profile board members including Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg.

Despite Nscale’s growth and strong government backing for the sector, the wider data centre industry is facing significant headwinds. Opposition is growing across the country over the pressure data centres place on the power grid, at a time when electricity prices are already high and there are fears they could rise further as a result of Trump’s war in Iran.

While the industry is trying to push back against the idea that data centres are inherently harmful, it is also facing increasing resistance from local authorities. Edinburgh Council recently announced plans for a moratorium on new data centre developments in the city, and Nscale is now encountering fresh opposition from Loughton Town Council.

Nscale, however, doesn’t appear overly concerned by the latest backlash. In a statement to The Telegraph, a company spokesperson noted, “Site investigation and permit work is under way on the Loughton site, and we expect construction work to begin in the second quarter of 2026.

“While the schedule was recently updated to accommodate the installation of the latest Vera Rubin 200 technology, we expect the site to be operational in the second quarter of 2027.”

The UK wants to be an AI powerhouse, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves even pledging that it will have the fastest AI adoption out of any G7 country. But if we want to actually have ambition meet reality, in other words, have more AI adoption, we need more compute. And if we want more compute, we need more data centres. And if we want more data centres, we need more land, more cooling and, above all, a lot more power. 

That is why Carbon Brief’s analysis this week hit such a nerve. It focused on a point that should already have raised eyebrows in Whitehall – the Government’s own numbers on data centre emissions looked far too low. And on that narrow but important point, Carbon Brief is right. 

The original DSIT Compute Evidence Annex said UK AI compute demand could reach 11.2GW by 2035 while associated emissions would still come in at just 0.025 to 0.142 MtCO2. That was laughably inaccurate, so much so the Government has already quietly updated the forecast. Not with a more accurate forecast, but with a note stating that it was intended to inform policy development rather than represent a final cross-government view, and that it’s now working on a more accurate assessment.

The Government’s numbers never really added up

You don’t need to be anti-data centre to see the problem. The basic logic is obvious enough. Huge amounts of AI compute require huge amounts of electricity, and electricity is only as clean as the system supplying it. The Government is right to talk about AI Growth Zones and faster infrastructure delivery, but it clearly got ahead of itself when it implied the emissions side of the equation would be negligible. If Britain is serious about scaling compute, then the power and carbon implications have to be taken seriously too.

It is not hard to see why the modelling ended up looking so convenient. The Government has staked a lot on AI as a driver of productivity and growth. It’s also made bold claims when it comes to its commitment to driving down carbon emissions and ensuring a greener grid. It is possible that officials simply assumed grid decarbonisation would move fast enough to absorb the coming wave of data centre demand. Maybe it still will. But that’s an assumption that still has to be proved, not wished into existence, and if we’re going to do forecasts – they should probably be based on probability. 

Ofgem’s own figures show just how big of a challenge it would be to get anywhere close to the UK Government’s previous forecasts. The regulator says there are around 140 data centres in the queue representing roughly 50GW of demand, including 71 projects amounting to around 20GW that have already reached financial commitment with final investment decision. Of course, not all of those data centres will come to fruition, but there are new projects proposed on a near daily basis – so the important thing to remember is that we’re getting a large new fleet of data centres regardless. 

Carbon Brief is right – but not about everything

I don’t want to get bogged down on Carbon Brief’s analysis being right or wrong, because it’s useful regardless, even if not flawless. That’s because it’s right to point out that the Government’s numbers looked too rosy, but it’s probably being a bit hyperbolic when it suggests that Britain is heading for a dirty, gas-fuelled data centre boom. In fact, just like the Government’s forecast, its ‘hundreds of times higher’ headline is based on a scenario, not a forecast. More specifically, it relies on cases where a meaningful share of future data centre electricity comes from gas. That is a perfectly fair stress test. It is not the same thing as saying this is the most likely outcome. Again, probability matters. 

There is also an important like-for-like problem in the comparison. Carbon Brief compares DSIT’s 11.2GW AI-only figure with Ofgem’s broader estimate that 71 mature data centre projects amount to around 20GW in the connections pipeline. Carbon Brief itself acknowledges that these figures are ‘not directly comparable’, because the Ofgem number is not specifically AI-only. That caveat matters. If the question is whether the Government’s modelling looked too low, the answer is yes. If the question is whether the sector is therefore heading for a fossil-fuelled free-for-all, the evidence is far less clear.

There is another point worth making here too. Backup generators are a real environmental issue, but they are not the same thing as routine power supply. Parliament’s latest POSTnote notes that generators are typically emergency systems, used infrequently and tested monthly, with regulatory limits on non-emergency run hours for larger installations. So it is important not to collapse every discussion of backup fuel into a claim that data centres are routinely running on-site fossil generation as their main source of electricity. That is not how most of the sector operates.

This is really a grid story

That is why the real story here is not whether data centres are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is whether Britain can build enough clean power, network capacity and system flexibility in the right places, quickly enough, to support the next wave of digital infrastructure. Before you argue that I’m simply defending data centres due to the fact that I write for a data centre publication, I can assure you I’m not. The industry can only get better if it’s held to account, but that doesn’t mean we can just keep adding fuel to the fire that simply states data centres are automatically bad. 

The public debate still swings too easily between two lazy positions. One says data centres are much cleaner than other forms of heavy industry and therefore should be given a pass. The other says they are climate villains in waiting. Neither is accurate. 

As Arcadis’ David Field argued recently, it is time to separate fact from fiction on data centre energy demand, because the sector only really makes sense when viewed in its wider system context. Data centres are energy-intensive, yes, but the real question is how grid capacity, phasing, cooling design and long-term energy planning evolve around them, not whether a single headline number can do all the work.

In fact, data centres will only be as low-carbon as the energy system, planning regime and technology choices around them allow them to be. That is why AI Growth Zones matter. The Government’s own response to the AI Opportunities Action Plan says these zones are supposed to offer enhanced access to power and support for planning approvals, while taking energy requirements into account with the National Energy System Operator. The AI Energy Council was also set up specifically to look at how AI and clean-energy goals can be delivered together.

The industry is already moving

And this is where the industry side of the story deserves more airtime than it usually gets. It’s not like the UK data centre sector is sitting still waiting to be told it has an emissions problem. It’s already well aware and is moving quickly on procurement, energy efficiency and backup power. 

Equinix, one of the biggest players in the space globally, says its UK data centres have 100% renewable energy coverage on a market basis, that all new UK sites since 2021 no longer use natural gas for heating, and that its Manchester 5 facility has used HVO for backup generators since 2022. It is also trialling lower-GWP refrigerants and says it is maintaining a focus on further PPAs and on-site low-carbon energy options.

Equinix is not alone. Kao Data says it procures 100% renewable energy on a market basis, reports an average estate PUE of 1.53, says it pioneered HVO for backup power in the UK, and has switched its Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO)-backed supply to Dogger Bank from April 2025. VIRTUS says it has used purely renewable energy since 2012. Those are not magic fixes, but they do show the sector is actively working the levers it can control.

This is also where it is worth being honest – after all, I promised to hold the industry to account. Procuring 100% renewable energy on a market basis is not the same thing as saying a facility is physically running on zero-carbon electricity every hour of the day. Critics are right about that. Equinix’s own UK reporting shows market-based Scope 2 emissions at zero, while location-based Scope 2 emissions remain material. Kao Data reports the same distinction, saying its market-based Scope 2 emissions remain at zero because of REGOs while location-based emissions remain significant and may rise as the business grows. So yes, the grid still matters enormously. That is why it’s not an argument against data centres. It is an argument for getting the wider energy system right.

A plan is starting to emerge

There are also signs that the industry is trying to go beyond certificates and easy fixes. Kao Data’s deal with Downing Renewable Developments to build a 40MW solar farm for its Harlow campus is a good example. The project is designed to supply the campus with solar-generated electricity via a private-wire arrangement under a long-term PPA. It is not a whole-sector solution on its own, but it does point to a pattern of larger operators taking things into their own hands by being more direct with their renewable energy procurement and reducing the pressure on the grid, rather than simply complaining about it. 

We’re also seeing similar agreements from other operators, with SMRs seen by some in the industry as an ability for the sector to decouple from its reliance on the grid, while also reducing carbon emissions. While we’re still some way from seeing the first SMR deployed in the UK, Holtec International, EDF UK and Tritax Management have agreed to develop an SMR in Cottam, Nottinghamshire, for the express purpose of powering a data centre. 

There is also a broader framework taking shape. techUK says the current Climate Change Agreement for the sector requires a 14.5% energy-improvement target by 2030 against a 2022 baseline. The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, which many operators have signed up to, says electricity demand should be matched by 75% renewable or hourly carbon-free energy by the end of 2025 and 100% by the end of 2030. Again, these are not slogans. They are formal benchmarks against which the sector can be judged.

And if policymakers want examples from abroad, Ireland is already moving in a more explicit direction. Its regulator has decided that new data centres connecting to the electricity network must provide generation and/or storage capacity, and must meet at least 80% of their annual demand with additional renewable electricity projects generated in the Republic of Ireland. Given the scale of the power problems in Ireland, it could serve as a testbed for how to deal with a growing need for AI data centres without breaking the grid. 

The real question 

So yes, the Government probably did underestimate data centre emissions. Carbon Brief was right to say so. But it is too simplistic to jump from that to the conclusion that the UK is heading for a reckless, fossil-fuelled data-centre boom. The more accurate picture is messier, but also more constructive.

The official numbers need fixing. The grid needs to move faster. Siting decisions need to get smarter. And the industry needs to keep proving that its decarbonisation plans are real, measurable and not just market-based spin. But the outline of a plan is already there: cleaner procurement, lower-PUE design, cleaner backup fuels, more direct renewable deals, tougher sector targets and a bigger push to build where the power system can actually support growth. 

The real failure now would not be a lack of ambition from the industry. It would be a failure from the Government to match that ambition with an energy strategy capable of making it credible.