Scotland is facing a data-centre boom. 22 new data centres have been proposed, mostly in the central belt of Scotland. Nine of these have been proposed by the English company Apatura while the other nine are backed by other Scottish companies, alongside one American company and two real estate developers.
The scale is huge. Scotland currently has about 11 datacentres. These data centres roughly have capacity of 10MW. The proposed centres all together will have the capacity of 7,765MW of electricity. That number does make it highly unlikely that all 22 datacentres will be approved.
The interest of datacentres in Scotland is understandable since Scotland is known as a renewable energy powerhouse. Since 2021 Scotland has been showing itself a potential data centre hub, arguing that the enormous energy usage could benefit Scotland’s ambitions of being greener and more sustainable.
There are potential benefits to these data centres. These data centres could use the renewable energy that is not being used. This would reduce the payments made towards the Grids and make use of excess power.
Others would argue that the extra energy left should be given to help the people of Scotland pay their bills with rising energy costs and winter approaching. These data centres use enormous amounts of electricity. Despite Scotland’s significant energy network, the grid would also need to be upgraded. This could mean months, maybe even years of road closures, getting in the way of people’s daily lives.
The currently proposed Larbert development also shows contradictions already. It apparently plans to include 200 diesel generators as a backup. Even though having backup energy supplies is the norm for these kinds of places it does not sit well with Scotland’s ambition of clean energy.
There is also the rest of the UK. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) have stated that having the data centres in Scotland is more beneficial than in London since it takes pressure off from the electricity networks there.
This raises the question whether Scotland would benefit from these data centres. Scotland will be providing land, electricity, and water. But it could be England that gains the economic boom.
John Swinnery has suggested these data centres should run according to Scotland’s climate goals. And the decision on whether they can open is being left to local councils. However, thousands of megawatts of energy should be a national decision.
When it comes to data centres in Scotland. Scotland should not just attract them, it should also question what the country and people are getting from it.
Journalism and Politics student.
