CIO OPINION
Scotland ’ s ability to attract hyperscale data centre developments would appear to reside in its renewable power generation capacity and energy storage potential .
Kerr Johnstone , Director ,
i 3
Solutions Group
Magnetic north : Scotland ’ s renewable future as a data centre hub
With green credentials that include the UK ’ s lowest carbon energy intensity , increasing access to RERs , low-cost land and political backing , are the pieces in place for Scotland to fulfil its data centre potential ? Kerr Johnstone , Director , i 3
Solutions Group , discusses the benefits of digital infrastructure investment in the country .
Scotland has been talked about as a location for big and hyperscale data centres for almost two decades . The geography , climate , access to renewables and improving subsea connectivity , tick many of the development criteria boxes for data centres . All reinforce the huge potential for the country to attract multiple large-scale data centre developments .
Scotland is green . A major positive for Scotland is its increasing access to renewable power generation resources . Scotland ’ s renewable energy capacity reached 13.6GW in September 2022 , a rise of 11.7 % on the previous year due , in most part , to more onshore and offshore wind coming on stream .
The electricity used in the south of Scotland – which includes the central belt – has been the greenest ( measured as grams of carbon dioxide equivalent produced per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated – gCO 2 e / kWh ) of anywhere in Great Britain since the turn of the decade . This is according to independent research commissioned by Scotland ’ s leading data centre and multi-cloud services provider , DataVita . The data showed that the south of Scotland had the lowest average gCO 2 e / kWh rate of any region within the UK at just over 47 grams per hour since January 2020 .
DataVita says , in particular periods , an IT workload hosted in Scotland could be 11x less carbon intense
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