Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS), Scotland’s climate coalition, is urging the First Minister to introduce a moratorium on the hyperscale data centres currently being proposed across Scotland pending rigorous assessments of their climate impact.
The energy demands of the hyperscale data centres either currently in planning or proposed across Scotland amount to between 4749MW and 5249MW: more than the country’s entire winter peak electricity demand of 4000MW.
The first of these projects to be decided upon was rejected earlier this month by City of Edinburgh Council. The project, proposed for the Gyle, would have a power demand of 213MW of electricity, which is the equivalent of almost a quarter of a million homes. It was rejected on various grounds, including that it did not take account of the climate crisis and that the lifetime emissions associated with it had not been taken into account.
However, Scottish Government policy in this area is unclear and contradictory, campaigners argue, as “green data centres” are deemed a national priority. While the Scottish Government says that planning authorities “may wish to consider” a set of criteria to determine if a data centre is “green”, there is currently no official policy on what “green” means. There has also been no analysis of the impact that developments with this level of energy demand would have on the electricity grid and on our climate goals.
Dr Kat Jones, Director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, a member of SCCS, said:
“Hyperscale AI data centres are the gravest threat imaginable to Scotland’s climate ambitions, to our countryside and to energy bills. They bring with them a tiny number of jobs, and the whole country risks paying the price for big tech’s latest bubble.
“In America, this threat has united a broad coalition, from rural conservatives worried about the impact on their local communities to environmental activists concerned about the climate impacts. And all sides know how unpopular spikes in energy costs would be. I hope all parties at Holyrood will take a closer look and support an urgent moratorium on these disastrous projects.”
Becky Kenton-Lake, Coalition Manager at SCCS, said:
“We have spent years pressing Ministers to shift to a fairer, cheaper and cleaner energy system, and some progress has been made. We cannot let that be reversed. While AI has the potential to bring societal benefits, these hyperscale data centres, if approved, would collectively require more than Scotland’s total current electricity usage. Politicians across all parties should back our calls for a moratorium to avoid blowing any hopes of meeting our climate targets out of the water.”
For more information:
Action to Protect Rural Scotland’s data centres campaign
The SCCS letter to the First Minister is available here, and to the leaders of the other parties elected to the Scottish Parliament, are available here