This is a short briefing on data centres including the situation in Scotland, the UK and further afield, energy requirements and impact on energy prices and targets for net zero.
Electricity Demand of data centres
The UK is the nation with the third highest number of data centres after the US and Germany with 477, and the number is due to increase by 100 over the next 5 years. Data centres currently consume an estimated 2.5% of the UK’s electricity. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) estimated in 2024 expected annual electricity consumption by data centres to rise from 5 terawatt hours to 22 terawatt hours by 2030. The most recent estimate in their 2025 report is 33TWh by 2035 and between 51TWh and 71TWh by 2050.
The estimate of current energy demand from energy centres in the NESO report is 7.6TWh, mainly for traditional services such as banking, which often requires close proximity to London. However they expect future data centres to be increasingly utilised for AI, which would likely result in less importance on location.
For reference, total energy demand for Great Britain was 260,969 GWh of electricity in 2021 this is 261TWh.
Under the IEA’s central scenario for data-centre growth, the sector’s global electricity consumption would more than double between 2024 and 2030, reaching 945TWh by the end of the decade. This is equivalent to the current electricity demand of Japan.
This piece on Irish News gives a good illustration of the energy used by a 22MW data centre and we are looking at applications for Data Centres of 200 -1000MW coming to Scotland
Data Centres in Scotland
The same NESO report suggests that a maximum of 20% of future data centre demand could be located in Scotland. Sixteen of the UK’s 477 data centres are currently in Scotland, so it is evident that there is a long way for this to expand. Some analysis suggest the cost of land in Scotland will result in high demand for data centres – for example data centre land in Glasgow can cost up to 90% less than in Slough, the UK’s largest data centre hub. Plans for a 1GW site in Irving, Ayrshire will have an energy demand twice the maximum capacity of Whitelees, the UK’s biggest onshore windfarm.
In 2021 the Scottish Government launched the Green Datacentres and Digital Connectivity Vision and Action Plan to encourage data centre development in Scotland.
You can view a shortlist and a longlist of potential data centre sites from that Action Plan.
‘Green Data Centres’ are mentioned with the new National Planning Framework NPF4 from 2023 as part of the National Priority 12 ‘Digital Fibre Network’. It is, however, unclear whether this reference is for all ‘green’ data centres or only those supporting the Digital Fibre Network.
A very useful Freedom of Information Request about Data Centres in Scotland from March 2025 outlines that there were 11 data centres in Scotland as of June 2024, 8 of these in the Central Belt, 2 in Aberdeen and 1 in Dundee. The total market size is estimated at approximately 10MW and there were no hyperscale data centres (over 100MW) in Scotland. The Scottish Government were dealing with 26 live enquiries regarding data centres.
The situation in Ireland and elsewhere:
The situation in Ireland, which has had a strategy of attracting tech firms for a long time is regarded as a European “tech hub” – around 21% of the nation’s electricity is used for data centres. The IEA estimates that this share could rise to 32% by 2026.
Data centres tend to cluster in certain areas, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) placing greater demands on local electricity grids than more dispersed technologies such as electric vehicles. This is pushing up prices for consumers close to data centres. In Ireland domestic electricity prices are projected to rise 8-21% over the next 5 years, while the price paid by data centres is expected to drop by 14%. Data centres have also been blamed for rises in electricity prices for consumers in the US and Spain, with a Bloomberg study showing that wholesale electricity prices are up more than 250% in places close to data centres.
Measures to manage data centre growth
Spain has had a campaign against data centres which are causing water shortages and pushing up energy prices, and the government is proposing higher energy efficiency and sustainability rules for data centres. The EU is also discussing energy efficiency measures for data centres.
In Dublin there is currently a moratorium on the building of any new data centres because of the strain existing ones have placed on Ireland’s national electricity provider. In 2023 they accounted for one fifth of the country’s energy demand.
On 14 October Client Earth lawyers intervened in a planning case in Co. Kildare in Ireland for a data centre which will triple the electricity demand of the county. They say that it is a test of Europe’s credibility on climate.
Data centres and reaching climate targets
University College Cork Research commissioned by Friends of the Earth Ireland showed that at huge growth in data centre electricity demand would substantially increase the challenges of meeting legally binding climate targets. The report states that all the growth from new wind energy created in Ireland between 2015 and 2023 has been outpaced by data centre energy demand.
In Ireland energy consumption of data centres has grown by 400% in 10 years. This report by Beyond Fossil Fuels gives a good overview of the environmental impacts of data centres. It says that, at a European level, energy demand of new data centres ‘is forecast to grow by as much as 287TWh by 2030 – that’s as much as the energy use of Spain, a country with a population of 48 million people.’
About the Gogarburn, Edinburgh Application
The documents related to the planning application are here.
The documents related to the EIA screening are here.
The energy use for the data centres is in this document here.
In Shelborn Drummond’s Request for an EIA screening opinion which outlines environmental impacts, they make no mention of water use and energy use of the energy centre.
Other information
‘Data centres don’t bring a lot of jobs’ says Microsoft Lawyer in their firm’s webinar on Data Centres and how to get them built.