Silicon Sands
A new home for ethically powered data
Why Blackpool can be Europe’s new data centre hotbed
Blackpool sits directly in the heart of the North Atlantic Loop subsea internet cable, which connects northern Europe and the United States. The cable can handle up to one-third of the world’s internet, connecting Blackpool to New York in less than 0.064 seconds and even faster across the UK and northern Europe.
Silicon Sands would use renewable energy to power immersion cooled data centres, with the excess heat being repurposed into neighbouring commercial buildings.
Opportunities
Based at Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone and anchored around a series of carbon friendly data centres powered by renewable energy, Silicon Sands will allow businesses and manufacturers requiring high performance compute to scale with direct access to rack space and high performance GPUs to drive artificial intelligence.
Around 20,000 sq. m of development land would be available across the 16-hectare site, including new access roads, centralised parking, excellent public transport connections and a high quality landscaped environment.
Land for a first 6MW data centre has been cleared ready for development to commence in 2026. The building would include a ground floor data hall with office and research space on upper floors. Plans for the building have been supported by funding from Lancashire Combined County Authority. Beyond this future plans extend to a series of data centres across the Fylde coast, potentially scaling up to 500MW data centres in the next 10 years. Opportunities are also available for data centre tenants, commercial and industrial land, as well as energy transfer stations and heat networks.
Availability
We are in the process of selecting a preferred development partner to build the initial exemplar data centre.
Opportunities are available for data centre tenants and new potential development partners for further sites.
Total power supply
- 32MW primary substation
- 20MW on site solar farm
- 50MW battery storage
- Exploring private wire to 1.5GW of offshore wind
Nearby data connections
BT Openreach, Virgin Media O2, Zayo, City Fibre, NEOS Networks, ‘ITS Faster Britain’, AQL Opus Broadband.
Transit to other major UK and Ireland Internet Exchanges IX Manchester, IX Leeds, NCL-IX, ManIX, Linx London, INEX
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Data centre growth in a climate emergency
“Our plans at Silicon Sands show that we can make Blackpool a leading location for high tech jobs of the future, while tackling the climate emergency at the same time.”
Cllr Mark Smith, Blackpool Council
Immersion cooled technologies
Data centres at Silicon Sands will be liquid immersion cooled.
The immersion cooling approach reduces power consumption by potentially 50% of an air cooled data centre. Immersion cooling also achieves a much higher cooling efficiency and removes the need for unit space for plan, meaning reduced operating costs, higher power densities, doubling node density and improving performance.
Using energy twice
The excess heat generated from the data centres would be repurposed through a district heating network, helping to heat other units nearby.
This will allow reuse of waste heat in other buildings at Silicon Sands and Blackpool Airport, providing further low carbon benefits and corporate social responsibility for operators.
Huge power potential
The UK is the leading location for tech investment in Europe. The tech ecosystem is expected to grow by over 150% over the next ten years. Daily data generation is also forecast to increase to 72GB per person in 2025.
The growing risk for data centres is the demand on energy consumption, with electricity usage expected to double by 2026, and restrictions placed on new builds from some governments around the world due to grid demand and climate impact.
Silicon Sands will offer ample power supplies through a confirmed 32MVA primary substation, a 20MVA on site solar farm and the potential to connect to a 1.5GW off-shore wind farm in the Irish Sea. It will also offer a carbon friendly approach to data centres, by harnessing green energy, using carbon efficient technologies and reusing the waste heat in the local area.
Silicon Sands will be a digital-led campus for high performance companies.
- 30,000 digital and tech professionals nearby
- Three million labour pool within 60 minute drive
- 1,000 new computing, engineering and technology graduates per year
- Just 20 miles from the UK’s new National Cyber Force
- A growing Esports tourism industry
- 17% saving on average labour costs compared to GB average
- Accessible by train, tram, air, rail and road
A skilled set of local people
Investors in Blackpool will find a skilled and talented workforce at their fingertips, as well as a range of quality higher education providers ready to meet the talent demand.
On your doorstep you will find 30,000 digital and tech professionals nearby, with an average of a 17% saving on labour costs compared to the national average.
You’ll have access to some of the finest education establishments, such as top UK top 10 university and research experts Lancaster University, as well as the nearby University of Central Lancashire and Edge Hill University. Between the two they create 1,000 new computing, engineering and technology graduates every year.
Finally, a wider workforce of talented cyber individuals is relocating and growing in Lancashire’s cyber corridor including Blackpool. This is part of developments of plans to build the UK’s National Cyber Force just 20 miles away.
30,000
Digital and tech professionals
Top 10
UK research universities
1,000
new computing, engineering and technology graduates each year
Get involved
Blackpool is the main economic area of the North West coast and a leading resort in Lancashire’s economy.
Blackpool offers untapped investment potential, from its billion pound visitor economy through its leading workforces, as well as below average land and labour costs and connections with leading research universities.
To find out more, contact us on the details below.
