What happened
As Mary McCool reported for BBC Scotland News on 14 November 2026, thousands of people gathered at the top of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and marched towards the Scottish Parliament in protest against the building of large AI data centres. Some came to oppose plans in particular communities, including Cockenzie in East Lothian, Larbert in Falkirk and Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway. The BBC describes the march as part of a wave of protests across Europe.
The BBC reports that Scotland's biggest data centre today is thought to be DataVita's site in Airdrie, with a capacity of about 12 MW, while the one planned for Chapelcross would have a capacity of 1,000 MW, making it one of the largest in the world. The Scottish Greens and campaign groups have called for a moratorium on large data centres, arguing they could undermine climate targets. Innovation Minister Alyn Smith has called some of the debate "wild".
The Scottish Government told the BBC it will publish new planning guidance on data centres before the end of the year. Two rules already apply. Since 17 August 2026, planning authorities must notify ministers of every data centre application over 50 MW within seven days of validation. And since a direction published on 16 September 2026, every new data centre over 50 MW must submit an Environmental Impact Assessment with its planning application.
What 1,000 MW means in electricity and carbon
Nobody has published how much electricity the Chapelcross campus would use, so here is what the 1,000 MW in the BBC's report would mean, worked out with the same engine and the 2026 UK government electricity factor the app uses (0.13096 kg CO2e per kWh):
- Flat out all year: 1,000 MW for 8,760 hours is about 8.76 TWh, or about 1,147 thousand tonnes CO2e a year.
- At an illustrative 70% average load: about 6.13 TWh, or about 803 thousand tonnes CO2e.
- At the 50 MW line where an Environmental Impact Assessment becomes compulsory, the same 70% load is about 40 thousand tonnes CO2e a year.
- For scale: an office using 50,000 kWh a year reports about 6,548 kg CO2e, so the 70% figure is roughly what 123,000 such offices would report.
That is the location-based figure: under the GHG Protocol's Scope 2 rules, anything drawing from the grid reports the grid's average factor, whatever its contract says. A renewable power contract changes the market-based figure. Two cautions: the factor is a UK average that falls as the grid gets cleaner, and these are our estimates, not the developer's.
What it means for your business
Your cloud and AI use is someone's data centre. Hosting, software, storage and AI tools sit in your Scope 3, category 1. As AI use grows, so does that line, and providers differ a lot in how much they tell you about it.
Planning now asks the environmental question first. In Scotland, a big data centre's Environmental Impact Assessment is now part of its application from the start. Those assessments are public documents, and they can give a published estimate of a site's energy use.
The grid is shared. A site the size of Chapelcross would join the same queue for grid connections as a business waiting for a bigger supply for heat pumps or chargers.
What to do now
- Ask your hosting, cloud and AI providers for your share. Ask for the kWh and CO2e behind your account, both Scope 2 methods and where the work runs. Our post on asking suppliers for carbon data has the wording.
- Report your own electricity both ways. Show the location-based figure alongside the market-based one. Our UK electricity factor page has the location-based factor for each year.
- See where IT sits in your footprint. Our IT, cloud and laptop emissions guide covers each item.
- Read the wider picture. Our posts on the Lanarkshire AI data centre, the Teesside substation and the Data Centre Covenant cover the power and planning questions for big sites.
