Plans submitted for 'world's largest' data centre at former Chapelcross nuclear power station

Plans have been submitted to create a £16.5bn data centre at the site of the former Chapelcross nuclear power station near Annan.

Developers CX Tech Ltd have said the site could create around 500 jobs and could become one of the largest data centres in the world.

The “net-zero technology campus” would include eight data centres and take around eight years to complete, creating 750 construction jobs.

Once completed, the campus will have 1GW of potential data-centre capacity – bigger than any other data centre in the world.

A planning application states that it will use a closed-loop, non-evaporative air cooling to “avoid the continuous evaporative water demand associated with some large-scale data centre cooling systems”.

CX Tech Ltd say the operational water consumption is “expected” to be the equivalent of four houses per data centre per year, equating to 32 households over the entire campus.

However, the plans face opposition from the Scottish Greens, who say that, if operated at full capacity, the facility would use 7 million MWh of energy a year, equivalent to the energy used by over two million homes.

The party says the proposal would put a massive strain on Scotland’s energy grid and emissions from the site would exceed the legal limit for greenhouse gas emissions in Dumfries and Galloway by almost double when fully operational.

Local campaigners are concerned that the proposal would destroy the rural landscape in Dumfries and Galloway by building in the green space north of the decommissioned nuclear station.

Say NO to Chapelcross AI Data Centre claim that residents of the village near the site and surrounding communities were unaware of the proposal, and have accused developers of a lack of meaningful community engagement.

Graeme Anderson, chief executive of CX Tech Ltd, 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.”

Scottish Greens MSP for South Scotland, Laura Moodie, described the application as “one of the most seriously concerning data centre applications to date”.

She added: The proposed site alone would use an unsustainably high amount of energy.

“While household energy bills keep going up, hyperscale data centres will only make that worse. The average household in Ireland now pays an extra £300 a year on energy, because of data centres. At the same time, tech giants and billionaires are making huge profits off of these applications.

“Just last week, the Scottish Greens forced a vote to hit the brakes on new applications and decisions on live proposals until full environmental impact assessments and a coherent national strategy had been completed.

“The Scottish Government stated that no decisions will be reached before the end of the year, and that they will have guidance in place by December. But now we are seeing the possibility of the world’s largest data centre campus setting up in my region, with the community given just weeks to respond.

“The site at Chapelcross should be the best place to put a data centre by utilising a decommissioned brownfield site. But the proposal which has been lodged is reckless and endangers our energy supply and natural environment. Until we have a clear national strategy from the Government, this proposal cannot proceed.

“This application must be rejected because of the risks and consequences it could bring to our energy grid and our rural communities.”

Lewis-Ann Garner, of Say NO to Chapelcross AI Data Centre, who lives near Annan, added: “We are horrified at the scale of this development, it would be bigger than Elon Musk’s Colossus, 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.”