Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
Scotland's planners face AI data centres up to 83 times the size of its largest existing site
Scotland has plans for at least 23 hyperscale AI data centres, the largest a 1,000MW site at Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway. The government has refused a moratorium, so the fight over their power, water and noise is happening one planning case at a time.
The Scientist · Science desk
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What happened
- The 600MW plan at Auchtertool in Fife would cover 60 hectares, about the area of 84 football pitches.
- Supporters say the proposed sites could bring billions of pounds in investment and thousands of jobs to Scotland.
- The Scottish Greens and campaign groups have called for a moratorium, arguing large data centres could undermine climate targets and strain renewable supplies.
- Developers are drawn by Scotland's wind generation, part of which is wasted because the grid cannot carry it to where it is needed.
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Why it matters
- cost Residents of the village beside Auchtertool would live next to a data centre the size of their own settlement, a local cost weighed against the promised investment.
- exposure Scotland's climate targets are at risk during calm spells, when fossil fuel stations may be needed to keep hyperscale servers running.
- constraint Where developers cite commercial sensitivity over what they run, planners and residents have to judge a site's demand without knowing its workload.
Every comparison starts from DataVita's site in Airdrie, thought to be Scotland's largest data centre, with 12MW of capacity [5]. The 600MW Auchtertool plan is 50 times that [2]. Chapelcross comes out at about 83 times [1].
That gap matters most for the reassuring evidence. According to the BBC, one expert has recently argued that the data centres Scotland already has consume less water in a day than its libraries do [9]. Even if accurate, the comparison covers sites no larger than 12MW [5]. The same report records significant concern over what water use would be if any hyperscale centre went ahead [10]. Industry sources also told the BBC last year that the UK government's plan to make the country a "world leader" in AI could strain drinking water supplies that are already stretched [11].
The noise evidence is a different kind of evidence. People living near data centres in the US have reported hearing a constant noise, and there are concerns that it has driven away wildlife [12]. Those are residents' accounts from another country. The sound comes from servers and cooling systems [13], and the tech industry says it is developing more efficient cooling [14].
The wind case depends on geography. Scotland has spare wind power only because the grid cannot move it from where it is generated to where it is needed [7]. A data centre can only use that spare power if it is built on the generating side of the bottleneck. Weather is the second condition. When the wind is low, the BBC notes, fossil fuel power stations may have to be fired up to keep the servers running [8].
The BBC calls data centres one of Scotland's most controversial planning battles [17]. Its account does not say how many of the 23 proposals [1] have consent, or how much electricity any of them would use in a year.
I'd want each applicant to state what share of its annual demand would come from wind power that is currently wasted. A megawatt rating cannot tell apart a site that uses stranded wind power [7] from one that relies on fossil backup when the wind drops [8].
What to watch
- Planning decisions on Auchtertool and Chapelcross, and whether either applicant publishes expected annual electricity and water use.
- Any change in the Scottish government's refusal to impose a moratorium on large data centres.
- Measured noise or water figures submitted with a Scottish hyperscale application, in place of residents' reports from US sites.