ESSEX — Developers working for Google have submitted plans for a 52-hectare artificial intelligence datacentre in Thurrock, Essex. According to experts at Foxglove, the projected carbon emissions from the facility will be five times higher than figures presented in the company's planning documents.

The planning documents for the Thurrock site, along with a separate datacentre proposed at North Weald, compare one year of projected emissions with the United Kingdom's five-year carbon budget. According to Foxglove, that method of comparison understates the emissions by a factor of five.

Google's planning documents state that the Thurrock datacentre's emissions will amount to 0.033% of the U.K.'s carbon budget for the period from 2028 to 2032. When recalculated against that same five-year budget rather than a single year, the facility's actual emissions over the period from 2028 to 2032 will be 0.165% of the carbon budget — five times the figure in the planning documents. The Thurrock datacentre will also produce more emissions than an international airport, according to Foxglove.

The North Weald datacentre proposal uses the same one-year-versus-five-year comparison method that Foxglove says understates total projected emissions. Foxglove experts say the approach applies to both planning applications submitted on Google's behalf.