PLANS have been submitted for an immense data centre campus in Dumfries and Galloway which, if built, would be the largest in the world.
The proposals, submitted to Dumfries and Galloway Council on Tuesday on behalf of CX Tech Limited, include plans for eight 120MW data centres on land north of the decommissioned nuclear power station at Chapelcross.
The total capacity of the centres would be 1000MW, which is larger than any data centre campus currently in operation – Switch's Citadel Campus in Nevada, in the US, which has a capacity of 650MW.
Developers say the centres would be built over an eight-year period, and would create 750 construction jobs and 40 apprenticeships.
They also claim that around 450 permanent direct jobs will be created once the campus is operational.
However, campaigners have expressed concerns over the plans, particularly as they were submitted just weeks after the Scottish Government agreed to pause decisions on applications for hyperscale data centres until national guidance is produced.
They estimate that the centre will require seven million MWh of energy per year, although developers state the centres will be "designed to be operationally net zero".
Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said: "This is a cynical move by the developer who has put this planning application in right under the noses of the Parliament who voted, two weeks ago, to pause decisions on planning until there was proper guidance in place.
"This will put the Scottish Government on the spot – they have said that developers can still put in applications, but also agreed that no decisions will be taken until guidance is in place. They need to immediately make much clearer their position to local authorities and to the developers.
"It is for just these kind of situations that we need guidance. We can't have developments landing in Scotland that would use in a year the equivalent of a third of Scotland's electricity use. It is just not possible to accommodate this kind of energy demand.
"This is a test of the Parliament's agreement two weeks ago and it is a direct challenge to the democratic processes currently going on in the Parliament, including work in at least two Parliamentary Committees."
Meanwhile, Lewis-Ann Garner, a member of local campaign group Say NO to Chapelcross AI Data Centre, said: "We are horrified at the scale of this development and that we have only four weeks to read 166 documents and thousands and thousands of pages of information to scrutinise what is going on.
"This is on agricultural fields and not the decommissioned nuclear site, despite what the developer is trying to say."
Sam Gibson, who is also part of the local campaign group, added: "Many residents of the village near the site and surrounding communities had no idea about the proposal until we started the campaign.
"There has been a clear lack of meaningful community engagement in consultations so far.
"People who have attended consultations have reported that their questions were deemed 'too technical' and could not be answered."
Graeme Anderson, CEO of CX Tech Limited, said: “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Dumfries and Galloway and for Scotland.
"Chapelcross has the potential to bring together our renewable energy strengths, digital infrastructure and high-value jobs in a way that few other sites can.
"We have an opportunity to seize that potential now, creating a new economic future for a site that has played an important role in Scotland’s energy story for generations.”
