New hyperscale data centre could have diesel generators equivalent of 106,000 idling cars

APRS has calculated that a hyperscale data centre proposed for Edinburgh is planning to use diesel generators for back-up power which would be equivalent to over a hundred thousand idling diesel cars.

Planners are currently considering the application for a 210 MW data centre at the Gyle in Edinburgh and the decision will be taken on Wednesday 5^th February.[1]

Documents submitted as part of the application for planning in principle show that backup generation for the development will be diesel with plans showing large compounds for generators. [2]

This is one of 16 hyperscale data centres [3] currently going through the planning process in Scotland. Data Centres need a constant 24/7 supply of energy and so all need back up generation for emergency interruptions in supply. 

Action to Protect Rural Scotland, a countryside charity, calculated how much diesel would be burned during the operation of typical diesel back-up generators used in high-power industry, in order to deliver the power required. [4]

“We found that the development would need over 200 backup generators and, when in operation, they would require 68,040 litres of diesel per hour, the equivalent of 106,312 idling diesel cars.”

Data centres say that backup generation is almost never used, they will have a dual feed of high power lines and so the likelihood a break in power supply is low.

However in the US, use of backup generation on a more standard basis is growing. In Virginia, the state is proposing to exempt data centres from air quality regulations to allow for emergency diesel generators to provide power during peak summer energy usage. They say this is to manage grid instability issues caused by power demand from the large number of data centres. 

Hyperscale data centres use enormous amounts of power putting strain on the grid and have been causing bills to rise in the US. The Edinburgh data centre at the Gyle will have an energy demand of 210MW which is the equivalent of a quarter of a million homes. 

In the documents published on the planning portal [5] from Edinburgh City Council estimated the site will generate only 39 jobs and a response from Scottish Power who responded that they were ‘unable to confirm specific connection details’ and ‘connection offers are subject to NESO’s queue formation exercise’. NESO’s queue prioritisation exercise that was published in December and Scottish Government have outlined that there would be 1-2000 MW of electricity capacity set aside for data centres across the whole UK [6].  

The developers claim that their data centre will be green, despite the huge energy use of the development, citing low energy lighting in its Energy and Sustainability statement. There is no mention of the water use for cooling, which is known to be notoriously high in data centres, in the ‘water’ section of the  Energy and Sustainability Statement, only that there will be ‘low flow sanitaryware to reduce water consumption’

Developers say that the ‘facility shall be designed to avoid the use of natural gas for space heating or power generation’ (section 4.1) however in a later section (4.3) of the same paper they say the backup generation will be diesel. [7]  

Dr Kat Jones, Director of APRS

“There is so much information missing from the application documents about the environmental impacts of this development. 

“The data centre will draw 210MW from the grid, which would power a quarter of a million homes, so a few low energy lighting solutions are neither here nor there. And that’s before we even start talking about the diesel generators.”

“If there were medals for greenwashing then these data centre developers are Olympic-level. The claims from the developer that this is a green data centre are obviously bunkum.”

“Diesel generators need to be testing and when you look at what is happening in the US, diesel generators are being used more as the grid becomes under pressure from the demand from datacentres due to their astronomical energy demands”

“This site is just upwind of the city centre, close to residential homes, and 220m from a Nursery. This is not something that should be happening with so little oversight – and without being required to do an Environmental Impact Assessment.”

This data centre has not been required to produce an EIA. Environmental Rights Centre Scotland ERCS wrote to the council highlighting the potential illegality of this position and the council reconsidered the EIA screening but returned with the same verdict. Busy Bees Nursery, which is only 220m from the development is not on the list of neighbours notified about the data centre. [8]

APRS research looking through Scotland’s planning portals have shown that this is not usual. 5 out of 7 applications for data centres which have reached this stage of planning have not been required to carry out an EIA, including the other Edinburgh site in greenbelt at Currie.

To contact APRS call 0131 2257012 and press 1 for media contact

NOTES

[1] Planning documents available here: 25/04239/PPP

[2] The diesel generation compounds are marked on the site layout plan, one of the documents of the Planning in Principle application 25/04239/PPP 

Diagram taken from Site Layout Plan (my annotation to make text clearer)

The application is quite vague about the power for the generators, which are marked on the diagram of the development. The energy and utilities strategy doesn’t mention how they will be fuelled, except that it won’t be by mains gas. It is just in the Air Quality Assessment where they are identified as diesel generators throughout the document, which states at 1.2.3 “The main air pollutants of concern during the operational period are NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 emissions associated with proposed and existing road traffic and NO2 emissions associated with the back-up power (diesel fired) generators” and 8.1.5 “Detailed air quality assessment of the operations of diesel generators should be undertaken when sufficient detail is available to determine significance of potential air quality impacts.” 

[3] Table of data centres in the planning system is on our webpage here: https://aprs.scot/data-centres-campaign/#where

[4] Calculation of diesel

We use this diesel generator which is the one that has been installed recently at the Vantage data centre in Newport https://www.wbpsltd.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/EN_KD1650-E-01-compressed.pdf  

Consumption @ 100% load Emergency Standby Power (L/h)= 324

For a projected 210 MW data centre you would need at least 210 of these (in reality you would install more, because data centres operate on N+1 redundancy so that they would install in cells with an additional back-up generator for the back-up generation).  

This means in a scenario where the generators are running to power the entire operation of the data centre, they are consuming 324 L/h each generator when running at 100 percent load (which they would be doing in an emergency). That makes 68,040 litres per hour.

A compact diesel car uses 0.64 litres of fuel per hour when idling

So these diesel generators, when in use, would burn the same amount of diesel as  106,312 idling compact diesel cars. 

Diesel is a notoriously polluting fuel, which is why diesel cars are now being discouraged through higher fuel prices. Burning diesel produces particulate matter (PM), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrous oxide (NOx) among other harmful pollutants that create smog and exacerbate respiratory conditions.

Carbon emissions from burning diesel are approximately 2.51kg per litre of diesel.

So, per hour of operation the generators would emit 170 tonnes of CO2

[5] Combined Consultation Responses (response 2 from Edinburgh City Council)

[6] These figures were published in a PQ answer S6W-41364 and in a letter to APRS from the Planning Minister.

[7] ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT INCLUDING WASTE HEAT STRATEGY https://citydev-portal.edinburgh.gov.uk/idoxpa-web/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=T16TBMEWJO800 

[8] Busy Bees Nursery 1 Lochside Place is not on the Neighbours Notified list  

106,000 cars is the equivalent of 28 layers of cars parked on the site of the data centre: calculation below:

We measured using OS online maps and google maps and came up with similar measurements for the size of the site which will have buildings on.

 Area calculations:      

Top rectangle- 123×65= 7995m2

Bottom rectangle = 160×186= 29760m2

Total 37,755m2

Using most popular diesel car in the uk (carbuyer)= skoda octavia= 

Image from carwow

Area of data centre

37,755m2

Plan area of the car leaving 20cms on each side for parking = 10m2

So you can park 3775 cars on the site

We found that the development would need over 200 backup generators and, when in operation, they would require 68,040 litres of diesel per hour, the equivalent of 106,312 idling diesel cars

So we would need 28 stories of cars on the site to get 106,312

Or bumper to number the cars would reach 500 kilometers, or from the data centre all the way to Leicester down the A1