What are the arguments against data centre planning bids in Scotland?

[Treefou]

What’s with the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Data Centre planning bids? I just don’t get it. Scottish water says they don’t use extra water, their energy use will help share the burden of energy system costs and thus help reduce the standing charge for domestic users, they will provide a few jobs in areas where jobs are much needed and they’ll be brilliant for growth. What’s with the objections? Does anyone have valid arguments against them other than ‘they’re an eyesore’. If so I suggest they’ve never visited Auchtertool.

Can you explain how increasing demand for electricity will reduce bills? I'm no economist but usually the way capitalism works is that as demand goes up, so do prices.

Can you also explain how a data centre owned by a non-UK parent company, and full of equipment made by non-UK companies, will increase growth?

The reason our energy costs are so high is net zero. We’re trying to go for green energy without having coal or nuclear as a back up. This is unusual. We’re giving huge subsidies to wind and solar producers but they cannot give reliable supplies of electricity because of the times that wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. This is when nuclear would usually step in, but we don’t have that.

So what we have instead is huge fixed system costs to try to store as much of the energy produced as possible, and improve the network. Your standing charge has rocketed to pay for this. But also in times gone by manufacturers would pay their share of standing charges too, reducing the share of the burden for domestic users. With the decline in manufacturing these costs have to be shouldered more by domestic users. You and I. Increase energy intensive industry, the network costs are shared out more, the burden on domestic users fall. The IFS did a podcast on this last week. Available on their website.

A business here incorporated overseas will still have to pay UK corporation tax. It has a fixed establishment here.

Ok, so you agree that our energy sector, reliant as it is on renewables, is unsuited for huge data centres. So where's the power going to come from? More use of fossil fuels? Have you seen the price of oil and gas recently? Or waiting a couple of decades for new nuclear plants to be built?

Let's say that your claim that standing charges will drop turns out to be true. What about the actual energy price? I spend notably more per-kWh than I do on the standing charge. If my standing charge drops by 10% but the kWh prices increases by the same amount, I'll still end up paying more overall.

As I'm sure you're aware, corporation tax is charged on profit. Everyone knows that AI companies are spending vast amounts in capital expenditure with, so far, very little actual profits. And given that you admit the number of staff needed to actually run these data centres is minimal, again, where's the growth going to come from? Apart from in the share prices of Samsung, Micron, Nvidia etc who are making the kit that's going to be going in to them?

Data centres pretty well need a steady supply of energy so they won’t help out energy management problem at all unless they also plan to build giant batteries to run off at peak times which would be very expensive.

The standing charge won’t drop because we build data centres. The standing charge could stabilise ( never drop ) once we have enough power infrastructure out there but adding more power demand pushes that time further back

Please define “brilliant for growth”.

Net zero is not the reason bills are so high. Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are the reason bills are so high.

Renewable sources of electricity are actually producing at a rate the grid can’t cope with and are often going under utilised. This is a significant cost to the tax and bill payers! The grid needs upgrading to cope. The idea they are unreliable due to weather is outdated and uninformed. It is the lack of infrastructure to harness the energy produced that is the problem.

The planned data centres will use 150% more energy at all times than Scotland currently uses at peak hours during winter. Where are we going to find 150% more energy? In 2025, 91.5% of energy used in Scotland was generated in Scotland (73.1% from renewable sources). Where is all this extra energy coming from?

These centres are also planning for back up diesel generators and gas pipe connections, because they know their energy needs are too big for our infrastructure.