A new “green” data centre being proposed in Edinburgh could use more power than half a million homes and cause more carbon emissions than the city’s airport.
Campaigners are sounding the alarm over the environmental impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and fear councils and the Government are allowing vast data centres to be built without proper environmental scrutiny due to “greenwashing” by developers and tech firms.
The UK currently has around 500 data centres, vast warehouses hosting powerful servers needed for things like streaming, social media and AI. This number is expected to increase by almost a fifth over the next five years as demand for data grows.
A planning application has been submitted for a vast new data centre “campus” on the site of the former Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in South Gyle, on the western outskirts of Edinburgh, which was demolished in 2022.
Initial projections suggest the data centre could be responsible for 200,436 tonnes of C02 emissions annually.
These emissions are broadly in line with the annual emissions of nearby Edinburgh Airport, based on the airport’s own energy use and the C02 emitted from planes during take-off and landing.
Data centres have a high carbon footprint due to the vast amount of electricity needed to power the computers they house.
According to the planning applications, the South Gyle site is expected to have maximum energy consumption of 213 megawatts at any one time. This is equivalent to the demand of over 520,000 households, which is the number of households in Edinburgh and Glasgow combined.
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The carbon footprint of the site has been calculated based on the development accessing power from the National Grid.
The developer, Shelborn Drummond, said the eventual owner of the site, which would likely be a tech firm or private investor, could reduce the development’s carbon emissions by signing a direct agreement with a renewable energy supplier to provide 100 per cent green energy. However, the project would still require back-up diesel generators on site.
The planning application is in the early stages. However, Edinburgh Council has already said the developer does not need to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment as “it is not considered that the proposal will have a significant effect on the environment”.
“Given the scale of climate pollution that will be caused, it is worrying that Edinburgh Council seems to have decided that no environmental impact assessment is necessary,” said Donald Campbell, Director of Advocacy at Foxglove, a NGO focussed on “fair tech”.
“Both the council and the Scottish Government need to ensure they aren’t taken in by the greenwashing around such projects,” he added.
The data centre would be built on the site of a former RBS headquarters, which was demolished in 2022 (Source: Google Street View)The UK’s data centres have typically been built surrounding London, but tech firms are increasingly looking north of the border due to a variety of factors including cheaper costs and the availability of renewable energy.
The Scottish Government has been actively trying to attract investment from tech firms as part of its “Green data centres” plan launched in 2021.
Scotland generates more renewable energy that it consumes and tech firms argue this additional energy can be used to power data centres and make them green. However, much of the renewable energy generated in Scotland is sent to other parts of the UK to help with the net zero mission.
Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, argues a boom in data centres could jeapordise the UK’s net zero plans.
“What we’ve had up until now has been quite a good consensus around how much energy we need, how we need to reduce energy consumption, what infrastructure we will need for renewables, but this throws all of that to the wind,” she said.
“We’ve got projections for how much renewable power we need across the UK and Scotland is carrying a lot of the weight of that, but it’s not just energy for Scotland we’re producing here, there’s energy that is going to England,” she added.
“When you’ve got a strategy in the UK to deliver net zero, you can’t just add a load on and expect that to work.”
The UK Government has been wooing tech firms as part of its growth mission, with the Prime Minister arguing that new data centres will bring jobs and boost the economy.
The number of data centres in the UK is expected to grow by a fifth in the next five years (Photographer: Erik Isakson)Last month ministers signed a £31bn “Tech Prosperity Deal” with US tech firms, including Microsoft and Google, that will see the companies build more data centres in the UK.
Campaigners say planning rules must be brought up to date to take into consideration the carbon footprint of big tech.
“Councillors and ministers need to be asking tougher questions of data centre developers – otherwise the public will end up footing the bill for the environmental harm they cause,” Campbell said.
The i Paper recently revealed that a group set up by ministers in April to advise on the environmental impact of AI is yet to hold a single meeting.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said it was not “approriate” to comment on live planning applications. Edinburgh Council and Shelborn Drummond did not respond to request for comment.
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