Southall industrial estate to be replaced by data centres

[IanD]

Right next to Bull's Bridge, if anyone is interested...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7ev27yn7o

 

"Plan included four industrial buildings including a logistics and distribution centre, a central pavilion and two power-generating substations, smaller workshops and office space."

[Jen-in-Wellies]

With a supply of water nearby for cooling the servers. 

[David Mack]

"... and two power-generating substations ..."

How do they do that then?

[Tonka]

11 minutes ago, David Mack said:

"... and two power-generating substations ..."

How do they do that then?

Poorly maintained though which is why the airport had to close the other year when the substation transformer caught fire

[billh]

On 03/11/2025 at 12:48, Jen-in-Wellies said:

With a supply of water nearby for cooling the servers. 

Like what happens in Huddersfield where the Uni. servers  use the HNC  and  cause a near permanent water shortage around lock 2 E?

[IanD]

16 minutes ago, billh said:

Like what happens in Huddersfield where the Uni. servers  use the HNC  and  cause a near permanent water shortage around lock 2 E?

Do you know for sure that this is the reason for the water shortage?

 

Correlation is not causation, lots of other short pounds have recurrent water shortages but no servers using water for cooling... 😉 

 

(and surely they'd return it to the canal anyway?)

Edited November 5 by IanD

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

(and surely they'd return it to the canal anyway?)

I think its discharged to the river, which is why the canal is often short of water. I presume if they returned it to the canal (close to the abstraction point) the canal might get rather warm! 

I believe this was installed when the canal was unnavigable, when the resulting low water level was not an issue.

[IanD]

12 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I think its discharged to the river, which is why the canal is often short of water. I presume if they returned it to the canal (close to the abstraction point) the canal might get rather warm! 

I believe this was installed when the canal was unnavigable, when the resulting low water level was not an issue.

I very much doubt those servers are dumping enough heat into the water to warm up an entire canal pound significantly, there's a lot of surface area to cool it back down both to the air and the ground (canal bed).

 

If it does discharge to the river and it was installed when the canal was un-navigable, where did the water to top up the pound come from?

 

And is this all still done today? Or like many other pounds, is there another reason (leaky gates?) why the water level drops? I've certainly found plenty of pounds with this problem on the HNC is the past... 😞 

 

It does sound like a bit of a silly design decision to have made -- assuming this was done that way, and still is, and is the real reason for the low pound as opposed to yet another apocryphal story to slag off CART... 😉 

[David Mack]

23 minutes ago, IanD said:

If it does discharge to the river and it was installed when the canal was un-navigable, where did the water to top up the pound come from?

During the years of the canals closure BW made significant sums from water sales to industry. All the infilled section of the canal had pipes through to maintain the water supply. With the decline of their traditional manufacturing customers, I imagine they were keen to gain a new user in the university.

23 minutes ago, IanD said:

I very much doubt those servers are dumping enough heat into the water to warm up an entire canal pound significantly, there's a lot of surface area to cool it back down both to the air and the ground (canal bed).

But possibly enough to raise the water temperature enough to reduce the university's heat exchanger efficiency, meaning they would need a larger more costly installation?

Edited November 5 by David Mack

[Onewheeler]

Is that the former site of Southall gas works and coking ovens?

[TheBiscuits]

52 minutes ago, IanD said:

It does sound like a bit of a silly design decision to have made -- assuming this was done that way, and still is, and is the real reason for the low pound as opposed to yet another apocryphal story to slag off CART... 😉 

 

It was a silly decision, and it still is.  And yes, the discharge is into the goyt just below the lock, not back into the pound.

 

Water level maintenance isn't automatic either, it involves boots on the ground waving windlasses both sides of that odd tunnel bit with no towpath access.

 

I can only assume that whichever idiot signed it off at BW/CRT (can't remember when it went in) had never seen a canal, or at least not that one...

 

It's not continuous use either, so they can't just add an appropriate size bypass to the locks above it without having even more water running off below the bottom lock.

 

 

[IanD]

54 minutes ago, David Mack said:

During the years of the canals closure BW made significant sums from water sales to industry. All the infilled section of the canal had pipes through to maintain the water supply. With the decline of their traditional manufacturing customers, I imagine they were keen to gain a new user in the university.

But possibly enough to raise the water temperature enough to reduce the university's heat exchanger efficiency, meaning they would need a larger more costly installation?

Not a chance -- the size of the body of water in the pound means any overall temperature rise would be small, maybe a couple of degrees at most -- unless those servers are truly enormous, which I doubt for a university. Now an AI data centre... 😉 

18 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

It was a silly decision, and it still is.  And yes, the discharge is into the goyt just below the lock, not back into the pound.

 

Water level maintenance isn't automatic either, it involves boots on the ground waving windlasses both sides of that odd tunnel bit with no towpath access.

 

I can only assume that whichever idiot signed it off at BW/CRT (can't remember when it went in) had never seen a canal, or at least not that one...

 

It's not continuous use either, so they can't just add an appropriate size bypass to the locks above it without having even more water running off below the bottom lock.

 

Sounds absolutely bonkers. Is it still in use?

[TheBiscuits]

9 minutes ago, IanD said:

Sounds absolutely bonkers. Is it still in use?

 

Maybe not, I've just looked up the EA discharge licence and it has a revocation date of October 2024.  Issue date of 1982 so CRT can't get the blame!

 

https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/water-discharges/registration/NE-3653-001?__pageState=result-water-discharge-consents

 

I don't know if another one has been granted to replace it or if the university just gave up on the idea.  Or if CRT water supply issues and/or abstraction licence fee increases killed it off.

 

The abstraction licence number is/was  2/27/11/160 and was issued in 2008, again predating CRT, but I can't find online details for that one.

[ditchcrawler]

Wasn't there once a bit of canal with tropical fish living in it do to it being warmed up?

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is that substations do not generate electricity, rather they take in electricity at a high voltage and transform it to a lower voltage suitable for consumers to use, incurring a small loss of energy in the transformation process.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

6 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that substations do not generate electricity, rather they take in electricity at a high voltage and transform it to a lower voltage suitable for consumers to use, incurring a small loss of energy in the transformation process.

 

On 03/11/2025 at 12:37, IanD said:

two power-generating substations

This looks like language mangling by a journalist who doesn't know the difference between a power station and a substation. In this case they might actually be power stations. Modern server farms use crazy amounts of power and if the local grid can't support that, then putting in some gas turbine generators would make sense to them. Who cares about global warming when people need to watch cat videos.and get hallucinated AI text generated. 

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Wasn't there once a bit of canal with tropical fish living in it do to it being warmed up?

Had some jelly fish in the canal a few years ago. Apparently they can be common in hot weather, they say they get in through tropical plants and dried fish food, a bit like the ants eggs we all fed our goldfish that we won at the fun fare, that lived in a murky bowl with a mermaid sitting on a bridge.🤔

 

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hundreds-amazonian-jellyfish-invade-mersey-7532359.amp

Edited November 6 by BoatingLifeUpNorth2

[cuthound]

13 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Wasn't there once a bit of canal with tropical fish living in it do to it being warmed up?

 

No.rhat will probably happen in the future once climate change gets a grip... 🤣😂

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

36 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

No.rhat will probably happen in the future once climate change gets a grip... 🤣😂

And when CarT is sold off to a Chinese investment bank and they are  transformed into lavish ornamental Koi carp ponds, to bring Chinese tourists money to the towns and cities.🇨🇳👲🥢😂 Mind you the canals are already filled with some Junks in London, so a couple of Pagoda’s on the towpath could brighten things up.

[Tim Lewis]

On 03/11/2025 at 12:37, IanD said:

Right next to Bull's Bridge, if anyone is interested...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7ev27yn7o

 

"Plan included four industrial buildings including a logistics and distribution centre, a central pavilion and two power-generating substations, smaller workshops and office space."

 

There is already another one close to completion on the other side of the Paddington Arm/A312

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

 

There is already another one close to completion on the other side of the Paddington Arm/A312

This one?

Edited November 6 by IanD

[Tim Lewis]

8 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

This looks like language mangling by a journalist who doesn't know the difference between a power station and a substation. In this case they might actually be power stations. Modern server farms use crazy amounts of power and if the local grid can't support that, then putting in some gas turbine generators would make sense to them. Who cares about global warming when people need to watch cat videos.and get hallucinated AI text generated. 

 

Its a while since I have been involved in Data Centre construction but the early ones I looked at contained massive standby generators in case the grid went down.

[IanD]

8 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

This looks like language mangling by a journalist who doesn't know the difference between a power station and a substation. In this case they might actually be power stations. Modern server farms use crazy amounts of power and if the local grid can't support that, then putting in some gas turbine generators would make sense to them. Who cares about global warming when people need to watch cat videos.and get hallucinated AI text generated. 

https://www.coltdatacentres.net/en-GB/press-releases/data-centres/2025/11/colt-dcs-london-hayes-expansion

 

"The three new hyperscale data centres, London 6, 7, & 8, will be powered using 100% renewable energy through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Power contracts for this development have been secured with National Grid and a high voltage supply is due to be delivered by October 2027. The expansion will add an additional 97MW to the available IT power at the Hayes Digital Park, taking the total capacity to 160MW. Construction is expected to start in mid-2026, with the first data centre (London 6) scheduled to go live in early 2029. "

Edited November 6 by IanD

[Tim Lewis]

7 minutes ago, IanD said:

Where abouts?

 

20 hours ago, Onewheeler said:

Is that the former site of Southall gas works and coking ovens?

 

No, it is just Southwest of that site

Edited November 6 by Tim Lewis

[IanD]

Another one then, but a bit of a tiddler -- I found Colt 4, much bigger... 😉 

 

They're all over the place if you look, but the new development is much bigger than any of the existing ones in West London.