ILI Cato, Auchtertool, Fife - Action to Protect Rural Scotland

This 600MW data centre is proposed on farmland by the village of Auchtertool, between Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath in Fife. The developer of this site is ILI, there is a newly constructed Battery Energy Storage System next to the site. The plans of the data centre submitted actually show the buildings covering Halyard’s Castle. The council is screening for the Environmental Impact Assessment and has given two extensions for the date by which it would be returned.

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Community Council webpage on the development

Planning Application Details

Update 26 May 2025

The Planning Permission in Principle application was published on Monday 25 May and is available on the Fife Planning Portal – 26/01243/PPP

The public can comment or object to the planning application until 2nd July 2026. You can comment on the application on the planning portal here. Please don’t leave making a comment or objection to the last minute.

Read the APRS Objection

The full objection written by Nikki Sinclair, APRS Policy Manager, can be found in the resource section of our website, or by using the link below.

APRS Objection to the Auchtertool, Fife, Data Centre

Some information to include in your Objection:

Campaigner Kate Wheway has put together a document cross referencing the Local Development Plan (LDP) and National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) to help campaigners.

Kate points out that the documents have very little information, and that planners are being asked to grant permission on ‘the principle’ of a data centre, with little scrutiny. She points out that it goes against the NPF4 and LDP. Plus, what they put forward for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) screening application previously contradicts what they’ve included in the design since, so Fife Council will need to pursue an EIA.

Reasons to Object Cato Download

You can read about how to respond to a planning application with Planning Democracy’s excellent guide here. There is more information on our website too.

This article in the National profiled various data centre developers in Scotland including ILI who are proposing this development.

Report on the EIA Scoping Report

This report was written from the information in the EIA scoping before the Planning Permission in Principle application came in. However it is informative for some of the key issues.

Resource: Report

Report on the EIA Scoping for Auchtertool

This report in the planned 600MW data centre at Auchtertool was written before the planning application for Planning Permission in Principle came in on the basis of the documents in the EIA scoping report

on the pdf document of the report we have highlighted the key topics that are likely to be relevant as points in an Objection.

Energy use

We have calculated that this data centre will use the same amount of energy in a year than half of Scotland’s households, or 20% of Scotland’s total energy use.

Calculation:

Load Factor: NESO Future Energy Scenario (FES) Pathway Assumptions (2025) workbook states that the fleet wide average load factor is 70%, yet this has been judged to increase to 80-85% for hyperscale facilities and data centres dealing predominately with AI.Sowe are using a figure of 80%.

For a 600MW data centre operating at estimated 80% capacity twenty four hours a day for a year this is 4.2 million MWh (4200 GWh) which equates well to the figures in the Planning Permission in Principle application which say that the development will be phased with an ultimate energy use per year estimated at 4000GWh [see the Energy Statement in the Planning Application]

There were 2.55 million households in Scotland in 2024 (Household survey most recent data) and household average energy use in 2024 was 3140KWh (from UK Government Sub-National energy statistics)

So the energy use of Achtertool data centre when built will use in a year the same energy as 1.34 million households – or 53% of Scottish households. (UK Government statistics)

Total Energy consumption in Scotland 2024 21.7TWh (21,700GWh) so this one data centre would use the equivalent of 20 percent of Scotland’s entire energy use in 2024.