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Vale of White Horse District Council has commissioned a six-month techno-economic study to determine whether heat networks near Didcot can capture waste heat from proposed data centres beside the operational Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire. The project is an investigation, not a decision to build a network: the eventual customers, route, costs, tariffs, construction date and even the full data-centre development remain undecided.
What the council has announced
The council’s June 2026 procurement notice describes several proposals for about 400,000 square metres of data-centre space on brownfield land next to Didcot Power Station. Its October 2026 notice says the National Zoning Model (NZM) did not account for these future data-centre waste-heat sources.
The commissioned work will examine whether heat-network zones identified by the NZM could be combined or expanded around the site. In the council’s wording, it will consider “the potential combination and/or expansion of potential heat network zones identified by the National Zoning Model (NZM), by incorporating opportunities provided by adjacent data centre development proposals.”
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Servers and their cooling systems operate continuously and reject heat. A heat network can potentially collect that heat, raise its temperature when necessary and distribute it through insulated pipes to nearby buildings. Whether that works in Didcot depends on the amount and temperature of recoverable heat, the distance to customers, seasonal demand, backup equipment, electricity use and the cost of building and operating the network.
A Vale of White Horse climate-committee record says the feasibility work will estimate available heat, identify buildings that could connect, determine the most suitable network type and estimate capital costs. Stakeholders are also to be consulted. That record expected work to progress from spring into summer 2026, while the later procurement notice sets out the study’s formal objectives and delivery questions.
What the feasibility study will test
Technical opportunity
- How much usable heat the proposed data centres could provide and how reliable that source would be.
- Which homes, businesses or public buildings are close enough and have sufficient heat demand to connect.
- What network design and temperature regime would be appropriate.
- What additional heat sources, heat pumps or backup systems might be needed.
Economic and delivery case
- Capital and operating costs, revenues and scheme viability.
- Delivery models with different levels of local-authority leadership and investment.
- How a project could comply with forthcoming heat-network zoning regulations.
- Evidence for an HM Treasury-compliant Outline Business Case and a possible Green Heat Network Fund application.
The study is therefore intended to produce evidence for a later decision, rather than select a contractor to build pipes or guarantee that any proposed data centre will connect.
Who is carrying out the work?
A Find a Tender-derived procurement listing published on 2 October 2026 reports Nordic Heat as the supplier, with a contract value of £42,000 and a six-month duration. Those award details come from a secondary procurement-aggregation page, not a council award notice, so they should be treated as reported procurement information unless the council publishes a primary confirmation.
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What is known about the data-centre development
The 400,000-square-metre figure refers to proposed development described in the council’s procurement material; it is not a statement that all of those buildings have planning approval or will be completed.
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Separately, the Environment Agency issued Amazon Data Services UK Limited an environmental permit on 3 August 2026 for the Didcot North Data Centre Campus, former Didcot A Power Station, Didcot, OX11 7BF. That record identifies one operator and one installation. It confirms permitting activity at the former power-station site, but it does not prove that every scheme included in the council’s tender will be built or connected to a heat network.
Earlier planning records for the former Didcot A site also discussed data-centre buildings and the possible reuse of excess heat. Those records explain the connection between current planning proposals and the council’s wider heat-decarbonisation work.
What has not been decided
| Question | Current position |
|---|---|
| Will waste heat reach homes or businesses? | Not established; the study is being commissioned to test technical and economic feasibility. |
| Which buildings will connect? | Not stated. Potential connected buildings are to be identified during the study. |
| What will the network cost? | Not stated. Capital costs are an explicit study output. |
| What tariff will customers pay? | Not decided in the published material. |
| When would construction start? | No construction date has been announced. |
| Will the whole proposed data-centre area be built? | Not known; the 400,000-square-metre description is a proposal, not a completed build-out. |
How to judge the eventual options
When the council publishes results, the meaningful comparison will be more than the headline heat quantity. Readers should look for the source’s temperature and year-round reliability, the length and reach of pipework, the amount of nearby demand, capital and running costs, requirements for backup heat, ownership and governance, compliance with zoning rules, eligibility for public funding and the timetable for securing customers and constructing the system.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsA technically recoverable heat source may still be uneconomic if customers are too far away or demand is low. Conversely, a smaller source could be useful if it is close to a dense cluster of buildings and can operate alongside other low-carbon sources.
What happens next
- The feasibility team assesses the data-centre heat opportunity and nearby heat demand.
- Stakeholders and potential customers are consulted on connections, service expectations and delivery risks.
- Technical, financial, zoning and governance models are compared.
- The council uses the findings to decide whether to develop an Outline Business Case and pursue funding, including a possible Green Heat Network Fund application.
Until those steps are complete, the Didcot proposal should be described as a council-backed feasibility exercise linking planned data-centre development with potential local heat networks—not as an approved district-heating construction project.
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