Data centres planned for Scotland would require a \u201cmindblowing\u201d amount of energy that would be sufficient to power several trips in the famous time-travelling DeLorean from the Back To The Future films, campaigners have calculated.<\/p>\n
In the hit movies, Doc Brown\u2019s fictional time-travelling car required 1.21 gigawatts (GW) of energy to take Marty McFly, played by actor Michael J Fox, back to 1985 \u2013 with this more than the 1.19GW of power produced by the Torness<\/a> nuclear power station in East Lothian<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kat Jones, director of the countryside charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), criticised the \u201cridiculous\u201d amount energy needed by the \u201chyperscale\u201d data centres.<\/p>\n APRS has calculated that data centres in the planning system and going though pre-application processes could require between 4.7 and 5.5 GW of power.<\/p>\n Dr Jones said: \u201cWe noticed that there were loads of press releases put out by developers about hyperscale data centres being planned all over Scotland, and it just seemed like the quantities of energy proposed to be used was getting ridiculous, and so we decided to look into it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve found that the energy demand of all the data centres in the planning system at the moment would power the DeLorean to go back to the future four times.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Green\u2019 data centres will tear Scotland\u2019s net-zero plans apart, charity warns<\/a><\/p>\n Plans for ‘one of world’s largest’ data centre clusters in Scotland lodged<\/a><\/p>\n Make AI data centres invest in renewable energy security, say Scottish Greens<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThere are two more data centres that are not yet in formal planning processes that will add another time hop at least.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an absolutely mind blowing amount of energy, much more than Scotland\u2019s total energy demand.<\/p>\n \u201cI really empathised with Doc Brown in the film, running round his workshop shouting \u20181.21 gigawatts\u2019, because I felt like that when I added up all the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n According to APRS, there are 17 hyperscale data centres proposed across Scotland \u2013 13 of which are currently in the planning system, two which are at the pre-application consultation process, and two which have not yet entered formal planning processes.<\/p>\n With data centres requiring a large and constant supply of energy, critics says they cannot run solely on renewables, with some relying on either gas turbine or diesel generators for when renewable power supplies fall short.<\/p>\n Campaigners say the energy needs of data centres could power several trips in a DeLorean<\/p>\n