An AI data center that takes its electricity from landfill gas has planning permission in Kent. Canterbury City Council's planning committee approved Era4's scheme at Shelford Landfill near Sturry on 13 October, with four votes in favour, one against and three abstentions, the local press reports. The application had first gone to the committee in July and was deferred for a site visit.
Power From The Neighbouring Tip
Era4, which used to trade as Carbon3.AI, will build on land that the landfill operator Valencia once used for composting. The data center is to be connected by private wire to the Valencia Energy Centre next door, which makes electricity from the methane collected in the landfill. Rooftop solar adds to that. The two companies share executives, and in October 2025 they announced plans for landfill gas-powered data centers at eight sites in the UK.
The planning papers put demand at full utilisation at roughly 140 MWh a day, which Data Centre Review works out as an average of about 5.8 MW. Planning officers concluded that this sits within the energy centre's average daily output, so the local grid should not carry extra load. That is small next to the hyperscale campuses in the headlines, but it is a real load at a site that already generates.
Cooling is closed-loop liquid cooling with adiabatic assistance, which, according to the application, only comes in above 25 °C. Era4 expects 2,000 to 3,000 m³ of water a year at full use, on an assumption of 40 days of adiabatic operation; South East Water's suggested ceiling is 20 m³ a day, which the company says it will respect. Councillors pressed for a realistic annual figure and did not get one.
What The Committee Argued About
- Water: several councillors called the use wasteful, although water is not a material planning consideration for the committee.
- The landfill itself: an objector warned that the hillside of sand and clay layers could move and damage nearby landfill cells.
- Odour: the site is under Environment Agency scrutiny for persistent odour issues.
- Vagueness: one councillor said the applicant had not been clear about how much power it would actually take from the methane.
The officer's recommendation to approve cited the government's classification of data centers as critical national infrastructure.
A Fuel That Runs Down
The last objection is the one an operator should look at first. A landfill produces less gas year after year as the waste decomposes, and Data Centre Review notes that the generation behind this site could fall over time. Anyone who has run generating plant on landfill gas knows the pattern: gas quality and volume vary, and the units that were sized for the early years run part-loaded later. A data hall wants the opposite, a steady supply for decades. How the site makes up the difference when the methane drops - grid, solar, storage or backup generation - is the question its customers will ask. No date for operation has been given yet.
Sources: KentOnline, Data Centre Review
