TL;DR
DataVita, the developer behind the Lanarkshire AI growth zone at Chapelhall near Airdrie, now says its datacentres will be “fully grid served”, the Guardian reported on 7 November. Earlier this year the company promised “more than 1GW of renewable energy capacity, including wind, solar, and battery storage”, delivered by private wire. DataVita says its commitment to renewables “is unchanged” and that its grid supply will come via a renewable power purchase agreement.
What changed
The original pitch was a scheme powered directly by green generation on dedicated connections. The revised wording keeps renewables in the story but moves them off the site: a planned wind and solar park elsewhere in North Lanarkshire “could connect in the future”, and in the meantime the company will buy power from the National Grid, which it says will be largely renewable.
When the Guardian first questioned the pledge, DataVita said the arrangement was “subject to final commercial agreements, planning, grid and consenting processes”. Its spokesperson now says the company did not misrepresent its intentions, adding: “Our datacentres are being designed to be grid served.”
The project still carries public backing. According to the Guardian, DataVita holds £202m in guarantees from the National Wealth Fund, and the 500MW scheme was pitched as creating 3,400 local jobs.
A pattern for this site
Chapelhall’s energy plans have drawn scrutiny before. In July a Guardian investigation found no evidence that DataVita had, or would soon have, 1GW of private-wire renewables, while the government said the site would take a grid connection. In September The National reported that DataVita wanted to run backup generators at peak demand at a planned 120MW site there. In our view, the grid admission confirms what July’s reporting pointed to.
Kat Jones, director of the charity APRS (Action to Protect Rural Scotland), told the Guardian that hyperscale sites “absolutely need a highly reliable source of grid power”, and that it was “not surprising that the goalposts have now changed”. Her group is also behind the capacity figures in recent Friends of the Earth Scotland emissions estimates for Scotland’s 23 proposed data centres.
What it means
In our view, the change matters less for Chapelhall’s carbon accounting than for the growth zone model. A power purchase agreement is a contract, not a cable, so a fully grid-served site competes for the same connections and capacity as every other large user. For UK firms weighing AI growth zone tenancies or partnerships, a published energy plan is a statement of intent until the grid and planning consents behind it are in place.