MORE than 100 UK AI-data centres plan to burn gas to generate electricity, it has emerged.
With 25 data centres planned across Scotland, this could have a major impact on the Scottish Government's climate change ambitions, a leading campaign group has warned.
Speaking at All-Energy, the UK's largest renewable and low-carbon energy conference, Stuart Okin, director of cyber regulation and AI at Ofgem, said that it was clear that "not all" planned AI hubs would be able to connect to the grid due to how much energy they demand on a near-24/7 basis.
This means that they would need to find their own ways to generate electricity on-site, with gas being favoured due to concerns that renewable sources, like solar or wind, would see more unpredictable outputs depending on weather conditions.
The event, hosted in Glasgow, saw representatives of businesses, campaign groups and governmental bodies discuss the interconnectivity of AI development and energy use. One of the key topics discussed was how AI-data centres would be powered.
In Scotland alone the total demand from all of the proposed data centres is upwards of 4.8GW, with multiple early-stage proposals not having estimates available, meaning that if all were to be approved and built, which is unlikely, they would more than double Scotland's peak winter electricity demand, which is currently just over 4GW according to the National Energy System Operator (Neso).
Speaking at the conference, Okin said there is currently "100GW of data centre projects in the UK".
He added: "Clearly that’s not all going to be able to connect [to the grid]. If a project isn’t going to get a connection, it is going to have to come up with an alternative method.”
Silvia Simon, the head of research at Future Energy Networks, which represents the UK’s natural gas suppliers, said the group had received “more than 100” requests for gas connections from datacentre operators in the past two years.
These requests amounted to more than 15 terawatt hours of energy each year, she said, which The Guardian reports is enough to power London for roughly four and a half months.
“Gas networks are seeing a lot of interest from datacentre developers looking to secure a gas connection,” she said. “Not just for resilience, but for primary supply. So this is already an indication that they’re really struggling to get through to the electricity networks.”
Precedent has been set in the US for huge off-grid gas generators being used to supply electricity to data centres.
11 data centres built for tech giants Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and xAI will reportedly emit more carbon into the atmosphere than the entirety of Morocco purely from their off-grid gas generators.
Julian Leslie, the director of strategic planning at Neso said this gas buildout could complicate Britain’s climate goals.
“The target was to get less than 5% of unabated gas supplying electricity in the system,” he said.
“But obviously if we’ve got datacentres not connected to electricity but powered by unabated gas then it does raise an interesting question about what that means for the Clean Power 2030 target.”
Dr Kat Jones, the director of environmental campaign group Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) added: “Those promoting the rush for hyperscale AI datacentres seem to be living in a parallel reality where the last 50 years of climate science hasn’t happened, and where we aren’t already experiencing the signs of climate breakdown.”
She said: “The conference sessions on AI and hyperscale datacentres seemed to be taking it for granted that onsite gas generation would be needed if these ultra energy intensive developments are to happen, due to the impossibility of connecting them to our congested grid.”
In Scotland, APRS analysis of a proposed data centre in South Gyle, Edinburgh, found that its on-site backup generators, which would use diesel, would lead to a fuel usage equivalent to over 100,000 cars idling.
The site's carbon output was also be more than 200,000 tonnes per year, according to developers Shelborne Drummond, a total equivalent to a second Edinburgh Airport.
Meanwhile, APRS has also raised concerns about a proposed site in Aberdeenshire, which would demand a "multi-gigawatts" energy supply.
Jones previously told The National that the developer's plan for a multi-gigawatt centre "would suggest it is at least 2GW, and Scotland's entire energy demand at peak is 4GW".
She added: "This single development would have the electricity demand of half the entire Scottish economy. And it will employ just 100 people, according to the company's own estimates.
"North Sea renewable energy is supposed to be decarbonising the UK rather than being brought, by direct wire, to a humongous AI data centre to train large language models for US tech companies.
"The Blackdog AI data centre is just the latest and most egregious of the hyperscale data centre proposals that we have seen, which will swallow up our renewable energy production, as well as demanding huge energy loads from the grid when the wind is not blowing.
"This proposal is so large it will likely require its own gas electricity generation for when the wind turbines aren't turning."
