Britishvolt ‘gigafactory’ site to become data hub after £110m sale
The site in north-east England previously owned by the failed battery startup Britishvolt is to be bought for £110m by a US private equity firm, which plans to build one of Europe’s largest data centres.
Blackstone Group is to buy the 95-hectare (235-acre) site near Cambois in Northumberland to take advantage of its links to renewable energy, according to receivers for one of the Britishvolt companies.
The receivers did not disclose the amount to be paid, but Northumberland county council documents show the local authority will create a £110m fund as a result of the deal.
Britishvolt burst on to the scene in 2019, promising to build batteries to power Britain’s electric cars. It gained the support of the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, and a promise of £100m in government subsidy, before collapsing early last year.
The site was formerly the location of Blyth power station. The receivers, Bob Maxwell and Julian Pitts of Begbies Traynor Group, said Blackstone planned to turn the site into “one of the largest data centre facilities in western Europe”.
Analysts expect demand for data centres to continue to grow rapidly as households and businesses stream and send ever more digital content, and demand for cloud internet services increases.
The deal will secure the future of a large brownfield site in a relatively deprived part of the UK. It will also be able to make use of local green power generation, including offshore wind.
However, it is also likely to end the dream of securing thousands of jobs at the site, which had been the hope of Northumberland county council, which had retained an option to buy back the site for £4m, the price Britishvolt paid, if the owners failed to build a gigafactory.
The startup, which had promised to bring as many as 3,000 jobs to the region, managed to win tens of millions of pounds of investment from the FTSE 100 companies Ashtead and Glencore, as well as Tritax, an arm of the asset manager Abrdn.
However, the project floundered as Britishvolt spent heavily on developing its own battery technology, and failed to secure the orders it needed to unlock further funding. Construction at the site started, but the Guardian revealed that it was put on “life support” in the summer of 2022.
Maxwell said: “This transaction ensures a well-funded and respected new owner can bring the enterprise and employment to the site that it deserves, and will be a huge boost for the whole region. Its scale and location make it perfect as the location for a European data hub.”