Orcadian Energy (AIM: ORCA) is planning what could become one of the world’s first offshore gas-powered data centres, located around 65 miles off the coast of Great Yarmouth in the North Sea.
The AIM-listed oil and gas company is proposing to develop new offshore platforms over the Earlham gas field to support a power station and a co-located artificial intelligence data centre.
Under the concept, gas from the Earlham and Orwell fields would be used to generate electricity offshore, with the power supplied directly to a 200MW data centre platform.
The carbon dioxide produced from burning the gas would be captured and pumped back beneath the seabed, with Orcadian arguing that this could make the project a low-carbon route to meeting rising compute demand.
Chief executive Stephen Brown said demand for computing power, driven by the AI revolution, has “upended electricity demand forecasts around the world”.
He said offshore power stations linked to offshore data centres could help satisfy part of that demand while avoiding additional strain on the UK electricity grid.
Unlike a conventional gas development, the Earlham project would not require a gas pipeline to shore or a direct grid connection. Instead, the site would transmit data back to land via cables.
Orcadian said locating data centres offshore could also avoid local planning opposition to large technology hubs, while benefiting from access to seawater for cooling.
The company hopes the project could attract interest from major data centre operators and hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
Orcadian believes the initial 200MW development could form the first phase of a larger offshore network, potentially expanding to multiple power stations and data centre halls with capacity of up to one gigawatt.
The concept remains at an early stage and will require regulatory approvals, commercial agreements and project financing before development can proceed.
