New research · The Firewalkers · June 2026

The data centre boom lands on the kitchen table — not the data hall.

⚠️

Building the grid and reservoirs the boom needs pushes bills up — and the cost falls hardest on the people least able to pay. Here is what the official data shows.

2× the national share of income, on water

The poorest third of UK households already spend 3.7% of their income on water — against a 1.6% average. The data centre boom pushes that bill higher.

Water bills — who feels it

3.7% Poorest third
of households

1.6% National
average

Source: Ofwat, Affordable for all. The same percentage rise hits a poor family more than twice as hard.

Energy bills — same story

~10% Poorest tenth
of households

~6% UK
average

Share of total spending that goes on domestic energy. Source: Institute for Government, citing ONS Family Spending 2023–24.

The numbers in plain English

50 GW Power that ~140 proposed UK data centres could need — about 5 GW above the whole country's peak demand of 45 GW (Ofgem)

£80m A year in power-cost support a single 500 MW data centre in Scotland could receive under AI Growth Zone rules

~30% How much residential electricity bills have risen in Virginia — the world's densest data centre cluster — since 2021

£0 Published estimate of what the UK grid build adds to your household bill. Nobody has put a number on it. That silence is the point.

Why it is unfair by design

A poor family does not get cheaper electricity than a rich one. So when prices rise, it eats a far bigger slice of their budget.

Bills are flat-rate for small users. A 1% rise is a rounding error for a wealthy household — and a choice between heating and food for a struggling one. The boom pushes on the exact point where the pain is already worst.

Who profits, who pays

The reward is private. The risk is public.

Operators get cheap power and fast connections. If the forecast overshoots, billpayers cover the grid build — and rural and low-income households, least likely to benefit, carry the most.

"If a project is genuinely worth building, it can afford to carry its own costs. Asking the poorest to carry them instead is a choice — not a necessity."

Scott Seivwright · Founder, The Firewalkers

What we are calling for

→Cost internalisation — developers fund the grid and water upgrades their projects need, not billpayers.

→Protected social tariffs — shield the poorest from any rise the boom causes, paid for by a levy on data centre sites.

→A published per-household cost estimate before tens of billions are committed.

→Public reporting of every site's energy and water use — assurances are not evidence.