Microsoft is proposing to develop a new UK data center campus on the site of a decommissioned power station in Eggborough, North Yorkshire.
“On 21 and 22 February Microsoft hosted two community events to present our proposals for a new data center on part of the site of the former Eggborough Power Station to the local community,” the company said in a recent community blog.
According to the linked presentation, Microsoft aims to build two two-story data centers on part of the former Eggborough power station. Further specifications weren’t shared.
“Our proposals for a new data center will bring this former industrial site back into employment use,” Microsoft said in the presentation. “Currently the site is being cleared to prepare the area for development. Our proposals represent one plot of the wider site.”
Microsoft said it is aiming to submit the proposals for planning permission to North Yorkshire Council in Mid-2024 and start construction in early 2027.
Located east of Leeds and west of Hull, Eggborough Power Station was a coal-fired power station launched in 1967. With a generating capacity of 1,960MW, the site's closure was originally announced in September 2015 but delayed until 2018. Demolition works began in 2020.
There had been plans to convert the station to biomass around 2013, but this schemed was dropped after the transition was described as unaffordable. Energetický a průmyslový holding (EPH), owners of Eggborough Power Ltd, has proposed a new 2,500MW gas-fired power plant on the site and gained government permission for the project in 2018.
Eggborough power station was bought by St Francis Group in 2019, with a plan to demolish the power station and build warehouse units in its place. The new EPH gas plant is set to be built on land adjacent to the redevelopment.
