Why AI and data centres pose massive threat to Scotland's countryside

But their blending into the background does not paint the full picture of their impact on the environment. And it seems data centre developers are not being required to give a full picture of that impact before receiving the green light from planning departments.

It's now widely known that data centres use monumental amounts of energy and water. In Ireland, regarded as a European tech hub, around 21 per cent of the nation’s electricity is used for data centres. This could rise to 32 per cent by 2026, and energy prices have already surged.

There is currently a moratorium on the building of any new data centres in Dublin, because of the strain existing centres have placed on Ireland’s national electricity provider.

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Big plans for data centres in Scotland

Now, developers’ eyes are on Scotland, given the low cost of land, plentiful water and ready access to renewable electricity. There are currently 16 data centres in Scotland, out of around 450 across the UK. But a recent National Energy System Operator report suggested 20 per cent of data centre demand could be located in Scotland – and the implications for energy are huge.

Two recent proposals for data centres in south-west Edinburgh will, between them, consume 400MW of energy, enough to power 200,000 to 400,000 homes.

There are also plans for a 1GW site in Irvine, North Ayrshire. This centre will have an energy demand twice the maximum capacity of Whitelees, the UK’s biggest onshore windfarm. That’s not to mention further proposed plans near Coldstream and on the site of the former Ravenscraig steel plant at Motherwell.

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Surprisingly, there’s no obligation for data centres to produce an environmental impact assessment (EIA) during the planning process. EIAs are required for major infrastructure developments to lay out all the environmental impacts in one place, to aid decision makers. However, we’re seeing applications for data centres – and also large battery storage installations, another potentially environmentally damaging installation – not being required to produce EIAs by the planning authorities.

The reason? It comes down to the regulations that planners use to decide whether one is required. Since data centres are not on the list of development types for which EIAs are mandatory, it depends on whether officials consider that a development is “likely to have a significant effect on the environment”. And in many cases, it seems data centres are being screened out of needing an EIA.

Vital part of the equation

We have targets for renewable energy to put Scotland on a pathway to net zero, as well as creating green electricity to be exported to the rest of the UK. There has also been a consensus that reducing demand and efficiency are an absolutely vital part of the equation: we need to insulate homes, provide more public transport, and ramp up the circular economy.

Renewable energy does not come without impacts – on communities, on biodiversity, and on our landscapes. We have no strategic spatial plan for energy infrastructure in Scotland, despite non-governmental organisations calling for this for more than a decade. This has led to the developer-led approach we currently have where there seems little connection between where energy infrastructure is being consented, and where it is needed or where the transmission infrastructure is.

The rapid growth of AI and the associated boom in data centres is making this worse. The energy demands of the sector will blow all our projections of energy requirements to the wind. We are jeopardising our plans for net zero while also putting more pressure on our countryside and landscapes to accommodate the mind-boggling amount of energy infrastructure required by AI and data centres.

Strict environmental standards required

Both data centres and battery storage are slipping through the net because they are a relatively new technology that has not yet been added to the list of developments requiring EIAs. With regards to battery storage installations, we looked at 56 planning consents, from the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit and 20 from local authorities, and found that only a tenth of the installations had been required to do an EIA. Since so many battery storage systems are being planned on greenfield and greenbelt land and the largest can cover an area of 25 to 30 hectares, this seems like a huge oversight.

As a result, Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), Scotland’s countryside charity, is campaigning for all data centres and large battery storage installations to be subject to an EIA and strict environmental standards. We are calling on the Scottish Government to add data centres and battery storage to the schedule one list, alongside large thermal power plants, steel and chemical plants, pulp mills and other such developments.

We need all sectors of the economy and society to pull in the same direction so that we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change. And we can’t build data centres that use the same energy as whole cities without clear-sighted and strategic decision-making informed by knowledge of the full environmental impacts.

Climate change is the biggest threat to our communities and landscapes, but we cannot mend a situation that was caused by the reckless use of fossil fuel energy by creating a situation in which we assume we have infinite renewable energy.

Renewable energy is not free of impacts, and energy needs to be used efficiently and with care. AI and data centres are, at the moment, one of the biggest threats to achieving our net-zero targets and to Scotland's countryside and landscapes.

Dr Kat Jones is the director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS)