Deep Green's facility on Listerhills Road is co-located by design with the Bradford Energy Network, a low-carbon district heating project developed by 1Energy that is scheduled to launch in Autumn 2026. A closed-loop cooling system captures server heat and transfers it into the heat network. Deep Green says up to 95% of generated heat is reused and the site requires no water for cooling — conventional data centres consume significant quantities of both water and power purely to manage heat they then discard.
Once operational, the 5.6MW site is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 4,500 tonnes a year. It will provide high-density colocation capacity for AI inference and high-performance computing workloads, with universities, public sector bodies and private businesses as the target tenants.
Planning approval in Bradford is a major milestone - not just for Deep Green, but for a different kind of digital infrastructure. The UK needs more data centres. That's a fact. But it does not need more waste.
The proximity logic is deliberate. Moving heat over long distances is expensive and inefficient; co-locating with the heat demand is what makes the economics viable. Deep Green selects sites based on power and fibre availability alongside the practical capacity to reuse heat locally.
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said the approval represents "a major vote of confidence in Bradford and in our region's future as an AI powerhouse," adding that Bradford is the UK's leading producer of applied AI postgraduates.
Heat networks are all about making better use of local energy resources, and this is a brilliant example of that in action. By capturing and reusing surplus heat from the Deep Green facility, Bradford is showing how cities can combine digital infrastructure with sustainable heat supply in a way that delivers real benefits for local people and businesses. It's exactly the kind of innovative infrastructure partnership the UK needs as we look to strengthen energy security while supporting economic growth and digital innovation.
Bradford is one of several projects in Deep Green's expanding portfolio; the company is also developing sites in Manchester, London and the United States.
