A new 20MW data center is being proposed on the site of a recently-demolished office and data center facility previously operated by energy firm Eon in Nottinghamshire, UK.

Elsewhere in the county, energy firm Uniper is looking to build data centers at a former power station.

Portal Group looks to build on former Eon site

First reported by Nottinghamshire Live, Port@l Limited has applied to Ashfield District Council to construct a data center at Sherwood Business Park outside Mansfield.

Port@l aims to develop on 1.3 hectares at Eon’s former offices along Little Oak Drive in Annesley. The former three-story office and data center building, built around 2003, has been demolished.

The proposed two-story data center would offer 20MW of IT capacity across 8,145 sqm (87,672 sq ft), split across four 5MW data halls.

“The application site, recently cleared following the demolition of the existing structure, presents a strategic opportunity to deliver a high-quality data center that will provide critical digital infrastructure to support the Sherwood area’s growing technological and commercial needs,” application documents state.

A formal pre-application enquiry was submitted to Ashfield District Council last year, with the council saying the proposal is acceptable in principle, with the development making effective use of a brownfield site.

Companies House information suggests Port@l Limited is linked to Portal Group, a provider of managed offices. The company was founded in 2000 and is part of the Cannock Group.

Portal previously had a data center arm known as Portal Datacentres, with plans to develop sites across the UK. An old company presentation says Portal developed a 1MW data center in 2005 for Eon, and was previously building a 5MW facility in the Aston area of Birmingham, with plans for facilities in London and Glasgow. Set to open in 2014, the Aston site is now occupied by security system supplier Allegion.

Portal has also previously delivered a 5,000 sq ft (53,819 sqm) data center for HP at the Sherwood park in 2013.

Nottinghamshire, a county in the UK Midlands, has a relatively small data center market. Data Center Map lists just five facilities around the city of Nottingham, from operators including nLighten, Iomart, and CWCS. The Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield has just one facility.

Property developer Harworth Group wants to build a data center on a former colliery site near the village of Rainworth, just outside Mansfield.

Uniper looks to build data centers at former Nottinghamshire power station

Elsewhere in Nottinghamshire, a former power plant could be set to host a data center campus.

Uniper closed Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the UK’s last coal-fired power station, in September 2024. The 270-hectare site launched in 1967. The 2GW plant is currently being decommissioned and is set for demolition, which is due to complete around 2030.

Under the current local development order (LDO) outlining redevelopment plans for the site, data centers are listed as an appropriate use for part of the land, but restricts them to the northern part of the site (the land to the north of the A453).

Uniper is aiming to update the LDO, originally adopted in 2023, to allow for data centers uses to be located on the southern part of the site on land south of the A453 in order to bring capacity online more quickly. Details on the number and size of any planned data centers were not shared.

“Since approval of the LDO, market conditions have evidently changed, as has the political situation, and there is nationally now a major initiative to bring forward data center development quickly to help drive economic growth,” council documents state.

The northern portion of the site requires large amounts of demolition work, and so any data center development would likely be unable to move forward until around 2030. The southern portion of the site is largely free of such constraints.

While the current LDO outlines data centers as an appropriate use for the site, restricting their delivery to the northern part of the site means “it is not possible to accommodate a major data center on any part of the site in the short term,” according to council documents. The documents state that the southern portion of the site is “less constrained and development on this part of the site can be brought forward more quickly.”

Rushcliffe Borough Council could adopt the updated LDO later this year.

Leader of Rushcliffe Borough Council, Cllr Neil Clarke, said last year: “An updated LDO could secure its long-term future for it to remain a site of local, regional and national importance, and we want to play our part as the local authority to maximise its potential. It’s important to positively shape the future of the site, and an updated LDO could deliver a major role in its future.”

Uniper is a German state-owned energy company, carved out of Eon in 2016.