Grid connection delays cited in the decision of the developer to mothball the proposal on the Cowal peninsular. However APRS say that the size and scale was always completely unrealistic.
This news piece originates from reporting in Isle of Bute News 30 July – Cowal ‘disconnected’ from world-leading data project
This was published in
The Herald Argyll hyperscale data centre stalled: Grid delays
The developers of this hyperscale data centre, Argyll Data Development Ltd, had applied to be an AI Growth zone to the UK Government and, in their prospectus for the bid said that the plan “represents a transformative, nationally significant initiative to establish a world-leading hub for AI enabled hyperscale digital infrastructure, renewable energy systems, and regional economic revitalization.”
Their document said there would be a “phased capacity expansion beginning with a scale up to 100 megawatts followed by growth to 600 megawatts with the potential to ultimately exceed two gigawatts at full build out.”
We always thought that the 2GW figure was fantasy, being half of the whole of Scotland’s peak energy demand, so estimated this one at 300MW (between 100-600MW) in our Data Centre map for the purposes of counting the power demand. However we did note that, in the grid operator’s (NESO) interim spatial plan, they had highlighted a request for a 600MW data centre connection at the nearest large substation, and so we presumed they were serious about creating a 600MW facility.
The developer had received planning permission in 2020 for a ‘building for data storage purposes’. However this was for one relatively small building (70mx20m) next to the farm and not in the area proposed on the AI growth zone prospectus. We could not find an application on the planning portals which would be big enough for the 600MW-2000MW site they wanted to create.
In their AI Growth zone prospectus they acknowledged the grid constraints and said:
“To overcome grid constraints the project will launch using on-site renewable energy systems including wave, wind, solar, vanadium flow batteries, and hydrogen production.” However the 74 hectare site proposed would only produce a small fraction of the energy needed for a 600-2000MW data centre. (see this calculation made for the AI Growth zone showing 100km2 of land would only produce half the energy needed for the 500MW data centre proposed at Chapelhall)
Peter Griffiths the Chairman of Argyll Data Development Ltd. told the Isle of Bute News that the project was “stalled if not halted” because of a lack of power connectivity.
Mr Griffiths also said that he was quoted “£5.5million for two cables” but they couldn’t be connected for several years.
The paper reported that Peter Griffiths said he has been “bombarded by stupidity” saying “There are people in Bute who’re full of stupidity, claiming they will have to look on to a big industrial site. That is nonsense because it will all be underground. All they’ll see is farm buildings.”
This is the second site that had been proposed in Scotland for a hyperscale data centre at the scale of a gigawatt that has collapsed, or been shown to be pure speculation in the last month. The AI Pathfinder site – trumpeted by North Ayrshire council as a “hugely significant” and “transformational” £15 billion boost to the area, was shown by a Bloomberg investigation to have progressed nowhere despite the enthusiastic welcome and support of the council. The article summary said “The project’s site remains a patch of land overgrown with weeds, and Bellamy’s company, AI Pathfinder, has crumbled, mired in acrimonious lawsuits, and lost large portions of its staff.” the site was also shown to be still up for sale and not even a Planning Application Notification had been submitted.
John Duncan, resident of Bute, which would be directly across the water from the development said:
“There will be a sense of relief that this development is not going ahead. The lack of consultation with the people of Bute led to a lot of anxiety in the community. Our biggest concern was the possibility of an AI Hyperscale data centre of up to 2GW being developed across from Rothesay Bay. It appears that neither the Hyperscale data centre nor the much smaller Data Storage centre will be going ahead, but we will continue to be vigilant in case the plans change.”
Kat Jones, APRS said:
“Stargate, being built by OpenAI in Texas, will be 1.2GW when fully built and is currently operating at around a quarter of that capacity, so the idea that Scotland can host AI data centres bigger than the biggest being built in the world right now, is absolute pie in the sky. These facilities cannot run solely on renewables because they have 24/7 power demand and so they need to connect to the grid.
“So it not a huge surprise that the developer of a data centre in Dunoon cannot find the connection that he needs. It was obviously always ludicrous that it could scale to 2GW, half of Scotland’s peak demand, but even at 0.1GW (100MW), this is a huge amount of energy, more than double the peak demand of all the households in Argyll. [1]”
“This shows, even more clearly, how urgent it is that the Scottish Government put in place a moratorium so we can get a grip on the speculative rush for hyperscale data centre planning permissions. Communities across Scotland are making heir voices heard – we need to slow down and consider what we are doing so that our environment and communities are not harmed.”
[1] Argyll has 42,600 households according to Argyll and Bute Council. The rule of thumb is that one MW is the power needed for 1000 homes.
