Leading disaster recovery specialist turned ISP Guardian iT has announced it will build its own power plant in London to bypass the city's power problems. The 24MW plant will be built next to the group's planned data storage centre near Heathrow airport, reports the FT.

The new market of huge data storage centres due to the Internet growth has caused a huge increase in demand for electricity, particularly in London. Unlike California - which suffered blackouts and electricity restrictions - London is still working fine, but Guardian iT has obviously decided to follow the US suit and build a power plant before it has to.

Also, since the group is spending about £20 million on the centre, the power plant is a good insurance policy - although it will actually cost more - around £25 million. It will be gas fired and run by PowerGen. Guardian iT's poor interim profits were blamed on the cost of entering the IT market.

Incidentally, we couldn't help but notice that the FT's article was written by the same journalist that predicted the failure of London's power network in July, but then backtracked when the National Grid got shirty. Were we wrong to have a go? Was he right after all? Time will tell. ®

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